Inside United Airlines flight carnage as six hospitalised due to sudden jolt before emergency landing
Inside United Airlines flight carnage as six hospitalised due to sudden jolt before emergency landing
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The cause of the mysterious jolt to the plane is unknown, but US officials are investigating. Six people were taken to hospital, and many more were injured after a United Airlines flight from Lagos heading to Washington D.C. experienced a sudden in-flight movement.
The United States has opened a probe into the unexpected movement, as the cause is still unknown. The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Monday it is investigating the flight that left Lagos, Nigeria in the early hours of Friday morning for what is usually a six-hour flight to Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
The NTSB said the incident on United Flight 613 occurred as the Boeing 787 was flying in Ivory Coast airspace, whose authorities have delegated the investigation to the NTSB, Reuters reports. Data from FlightRadar shows the flight leaving Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos at 19 minutes past midnight, and approximately an hour and a half into the flight the plane makes a U-turn over the Ivory Coast and heads back to Nigeria.
The flight then made an emergency landing back in its departure airport in Lagos around three hours after it took off. Footage on social media shows meal plates and personal items flung onto the floor in the aisle, while passengers can be heard shouting and sounding distressed.
United said in a statement the plane experienced a “technical issue and an unexpected aircraft movement”. The airline added the plane landed safely in Lagos, where four passengers and two flight attendants were seen in hospital for injuries they sustained, and have since been released.
