Tire Plummets From United Flight Into Airport’s Employee Parking Lot

A tire was captured plummeting from a United Airlines flight from San Francisco on Thursday—an incident that appears to have significantly damaged cars in an airport employee parking lot, but miraculously injured nobody.

United confirmed the incident in a statement, saying United Flight 35, bound for Osaka, Japan, “lost a portion of landing gear tire during takeoff” around 11:35 a.m. Thursday.

The plane involved in the incident was a Boeing 777-200, marking yet another eerie incident involving a Boeing aircraft in recent months. Aerial footage captured by California news stations, including ABC 7, showed that at least two cars in the employee parking lot were cordoned off and significantly damaged.

An airport spokesperson told the San Francisco Chronicle that the runway was briefly closed to clear debris from the scene, but later reopened.

An airline spokesperson told the Chronicle the flight was being diverted to Los Angeles International Airport, where it intended to arrange “a new aircraft to continue this trip for our customers.”

There were 235 passengers aboard the flight, plus crew members. United said in a statement the plane is designed to be able to “land safely with missing or damaged tires.”

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