A United flight had to make an emergency landing on the remote Midway Island Thursday night. The United Airlines Boeing 777 that was flying from Honolulu to Guam diverted its course due to mechanical issues, KITV 4 reports.
The plane remains on Midway Island where airline officials are investigating the aircraft. 335 passengers and 13 crew members spent seven hours at Midway until a replacement plane picked arrived. The new plane landed at 6:45 am Friday, according to the report. A special flight from Honolulu to Guam left at 2:35 pm Friday that was suppose to arrive Saturday at 5:58 pm.
A passenger on the United flight #201 emergency landing — Teresa Smith — says the aircraft had a burning smell and attendants began acting nervous five hours into the flight. When the odor got stronger, they headed to Midway Island. Smith recalls fear in passengers growing and some doing a lot of praying. Other passengers heard alarms in the back of the plane going off. Smith says:
“It was terribly frightening. There was no doubt, 100 percent emotion, of the feeling that the plane was going to go down.”
Smith says once the plane landed on Midway that the captain informed them the fumes were strong in the cockpit, they were losing power, and the radar was going out.
Passengers were forced to await the next plane in an abandoned gym, but now they’re in Guam without their luggage, as there was no way to immediately retrieve it after the defective plane landed.
Daily Mail adds in its report that the airstrip where the United flight emergency landing occurred is a former Navy atoll 1,300 miles north of Honolulu. It was used by the U.S. Navy as a base during the Cold War, but was left in 1996. The area is currently a wildlife refuge that homes over one million seabirds, sea turtles, and endangered Hawaiian monk seals. There are an estimated 60 residents there.
Diverted airline flights make it in the news on an occasional basis. The Inquisitr has reported on several this year, including one in which a flight from California to Nebraska had to be diverted because a passenger attempted opening the emergency door. Another emergency landing was made when a man aboard a flight from New York went “berserk” and the pilot diverted the aircraft to Anchorage. Even country singer Miranda Lambert’s plane had to land unexpectedly. She and her entourage were delayed for three hours.
The United flight emergency landing inconvenienced a number of passengers, but they’re thankful the plane didn’t go down.
[Image via Chfi.com ]
