United Airlines Eugene Flight Makes Emergency Landing At San Francisco International
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- A United Airlines flight to Eugene, Ore., was forced to returned to San Francisco International Airport Saturday and make an emergency landing after encountering a landing gear issue, authorities said.
United Flight 5525 -- a Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-200 -- took off from SFO at 4:45 p.m. and quickly ran into a problem. After circling over the Bay Area for nearly an hour, the jet safely landed at 5:43 p.m. with emergency vehicles lining the runway.
Joe Caggiano, a scientist in Planetary Science and Space Physics at the University of Oregon, was on the flight returning home from the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
He took to social media to relate his experience on the flight.
"When we were originally supposed to leave, they deboarded us to replace a tire on the left-rear landing gear," Caggiano tweeted. "They replaced the tire and we got back on and took off. About 20 minutes into the flight there was a loud popping noise followed by a whooshing noise."
"That's when the pilot turned around. It wasn't until we were well on our way back that she announced we were going to make an emergency landing. We went through the bracing procedure and the landing was fine."
Caggiano gave the flight crew a lot of credit for keeping the passengers calm as the plane returned to the airport.
"Everyone was fine though and United your flight attendant on Flight 5525 deserves a raise," he posted. "He went through the emergency landing procedures in such a collected manner, in a situation that was probably more stressful to him than it was on us!"
As he departed the plane, Caggiano tweeted he could see damage on the plane.
"However, as I was getting off the plane, I noticed sheet metal on the left rear landing gear door was bent and in bad shape," he tweeted.
United Airlines said it was investigating the incident. The passengers would be booked on other flights.
