“We could see that there was a giant black cloud of smoke high in the sky, immediately followed by, you know, what looked like pieces of the aircraft,” Cain told CNN. “Basically, a shower of things that were falling from the sky.”
About 10,000 feet above, Travis Loock heard the same crash, but coming from the plane he was on – United flight 328. Within minutes of taking off to Honolulu, the engine failed. When the plane returned to Denver International Airport, he threw more engine wreckage over the roofs of houses and in backyards.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) On Sunday, an initial examination of the United Airlines Flight 328 Pratt & Whitney PW4077 engine showed that two fan blades were fractured and the remaining blades exhibited damage “to the leading edges and edges”.
These are preliminary conclusions and should not be considered conclusive about what went wrong on Saturday, but they are still significant.
Loock shared videos which showed the engine completely stripped of its outer housing.
“A lot of people couldn’t see the engine from that side,” Loock told CNN. “I was a little more scared because I could see and I knew it wasn’t right,” he said.
“We were glad we didn’t cross the ocean, because that’s where we were going.”
Boeing recommends suspending the use of Pratt & Whitney 4000 powered planes
“While the NTSB investigation is ongoing, we recommend suspending operations of the 69 777s in service and 59 in storage with Pratt & Whitney 4000-112 engines until the FAA identifies the appropriate inspection protocol,” said Boeing.
The FAA issued an emergency order earlier on Sunday saying it would intensify inspections of Boeing 777 planes equipped with certain Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines.
United Airlines announced on Sunday that it was removing all of its Boeing 777 aircraft in service that use the same engine. Japan’s Ministry of Transport said it had ordered domestic airlines in the country to suspend the operations of Boeing 777 aircraft equipped with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines.
Pratt & Whitney issued a statement saying it sent a team to work with investigators on the incident.
“Pratt & Whitney is actively coordinating with operators and regulators to support the revised inspection interval for the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines that power Boeing 777 aircraft,” said the company’s statement. “Any other investigative updates on this event will be at the discretion of the NTSB. Pratt & Whitney will continue to work to ensure the safe operation of the fleet.”
Fear in the air
Loock, who was returning to the airport, said the weather on the plane was tense. The pilot called and said they would land in four minutes.
Passenger Brenda Dohn said she and her daughter, like other passengers, took the time to pray.
“My daughter was sitting at the window and … I was like, ‘it doesn’t look like we’re going to close and pray’.”
The audio of the plane’s air traffic conveyed a sense of urgency, but not panic.
“United 328 Heavy – Mayday Mayday … departing from Denver. United 328 Heavy Mayday. The aircraft has just failed its engine – it needs to turn immediately.”
Defective engine debris has fallen a mile on a football field and nearby neighborhoods, Broomfield Police spokeswoman Rachel Welte said during a news conference on Saturday.
“We dispatched policemen and within minutes we were already at the location of some of these houses and we saw some of these large pieces of rubble,” said Welte.
Looking at the debris field and how busy the area was, Welte said, “the fact that we are still not receiving reports of any injuries is absolutely shocking at this point.”
“This park on a day like today, when it is not as cold as last weekend, we could have hundreds of people here.”
CNN’s Pete Muntean, Alta Spells, David Williams, Konstantin Toropin, Chuck Johnston, Andy Rose and Lucy Kafanov contributed to this report.