Top Stories

How United Airlines passengers reacted when the plane's engine exploded midair

February 21, 2021. Summarized by summa-bot.

Compression ratio: 19.4%. 1 min read.

The loud boom was unmistakable aboard United Flight 328 just after takeoff on Saturday. Something had clearly gone very wrong.

Some of the 241 people on the flight from Denver International Airport to Honolulu opened their windows to see an exposed engine spewing flames and pieces of the plane falling away.

Travis Loock, a passenger on Flight 328, told CNN it was about 20 minutes after takeoff for Honolulu that he heard a boom.

"I thought lightning struck the plane at first," he told CNN affiliate KCNC.

"My daughter was sitting on the window and I was just like, 'Don't look, let's close it up, and let's just pray,'" she told CNN affiliate KUSA.

"But as soon as I open the door, I go, 'that is the front engine of a plane,'" Klements said.

Kieran Cain told CNN he was playing with his children at a local elementary school when a plane flew over and they heard a loud boom.

"We saw it go over, we heard the big explosion, we looked up, there was black smoke in the sky," Cain told CNN.

One Broomfield homeowner told KCNC that he was making sandwiches for his daughters when debris from the plane smashed through his roof.

Another man, Mark Moskovics, told KCNC he heard a loud boom and looked outside to see a large piece of debris fall from the sky in the street.

Suggestions

Latest

In this category