Tire Falls Off Boeing Passenger Jet During Takeoff

Seriously, what the heck is going on with our planes?

Plane View

It seems that 2024 is, apparently, the year the planes all freaked out.

That's the impression we get, anyway, learning about yet another part falling off a plane — this time on a Boeing 777 that was supposed to be headed from San Francisco to Japan that instead had to make a pit stop before even leaving California when its tire fell off.

In statements provided to NBC and other news outlets, United Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that during takeoff from San Francisco International Airport, the Osaka-bound plane lost one of its tires, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles.

As the FAA indicated, there were nearly 250 people aboard the jet, 10 of whom were flight attendants and another four of whom were pilots. The moment was immortalized by a livestreamer going by the moniker of Cali Planes.

"We’re grateful to our pilots and flight attendants for their professionalism in managing this situation," United Airlines said in its statement to the press. "We’re also grateful to our teams on the ground who were waiting with a tug to move the aircraft soon after it landed and to our teams in the airport who assisted customers upon their arrival."

The tire that fell to the ground ended up damaging a bunch of cars in the San Francisco airport's employee parking lot. As the Bay Area's local ABC affiliate reports, several cars were crushed by the jet's giant tire.

Recent History

Disturbingly, this incident occurred the same day that the National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report about its investigation into another incident involving a United-owned Boeing — and just a day before a different United flight, which also involved a Boeing-made aircraft, made headlines when the plane rolled onto the grass at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport and tilted onto its side when pilots were attempting to land it.

The tire-less Boeing 777 also follows a string of other bizarre airline incidents that have occurred in the first few months of this year, including the door that blew off a Boeing 737 in the beginning of January, a man dying aboard an international flight after bleeding out of his nose and mouth, and maggots raining down on passengers on a long flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

While there are, unfortunately, lots and lots of weird and dangerous things that happen during flights every year, these incidents and the several others like it that have occurred thus far into 2024 do make flying somehow even worse than usual.

More plane drama: Passengers Alarmed to See Plane Wing Falling Apart in Mid-Air