A United Airlines flight from Hawaii to Majuro, capital of the Marshall Islands, was forced to return to Honolulu Sunday after one of its engines apparently caught fire.
A passenger on Flight 132 recorded video of flames shooting out from an engine as it was diverted back to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.
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There were no injuries.
A United spokesperson airlines-passengers-say-engine-caught-fire-flight-was-diverted/2030468696″ target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>told KHON in Honolulu that the flight experienced a mechanical issue with one of the engines a little while after taking off and as a result, returned to the airport.
Passenger Josh Ley, who provided the video to KHON, was sitting in a window seat behind the left wing when he saw “fire and smoke coming out the back for like a few seconds, like two spurs of fire. Then next thing you know we were staying at the same elevation, circling around for almost an hour before we landed again. It was about an hour of just trying to figure out what’s going on.”
Ley said eventually one of the pilots made an announcement that one of the compressors of the engine failed.
The flight landed safely but the plane was taken out of commission.
“They checked out the plane to make sure that we were safe to arrive at the gate. They had to cool down the breaks,” Ley told KHON. “They gave us the go-ahead to come back to the gate. We waited at the gate for a little while. Finally, we got the notice that our flight was canceled.”
Some passengers were put on an alternate flight later on Sunday, but the aircraft could not accommodate everybody. Since Majuro is not a popular destination, Ley was one of the passengers who was rebooked for a flight to Majuro on Friday and given hotel accommodations and food and taxi vouchers.
