A United Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing at the Denver International Airport on Sunday after one of the engines caught fire in a frightening scene.
Per Kasia Kerridge of FOX31, a United Airlines plane flying from the Denver International Airport to Edmonton, Alberta, was forced to make an emergency landing on Sunday, 75 minutes after takeoff.
The flight left just after 7:00 p.m. local time, but had to make the landing after one of the engines caught fire. Video footage shows commotion inside the plane’s cabin, with one of the passengers showing footage of a fireball coming out of the engine:
Chaos on a United Airlines flight heading to Edmonton after one of the engines caught on fire due to what the airline called a ‘wildlife strike.’
After the crew declared a mayday and shut down the right engine, the plane made an emergency landing in Denver, its original point of… pic.twitter.com/NDC8dGdkD1
— YEGWAVE (@yegwave) April 16, 2025
Thankfully, none of the 153 passengers or six crew members were injured. After a delay, the airline resumed its travel schedule as each passenger got to fly out from the Denver International Airport to Denver.
Passenger Scott Wolff described the terrifying scene to Kerridge:
“We were airborne and on the right side of the plane was this rhythmic ‘bang bang’ and a whirl and a ‘bang bang’ and it would keep going on and on. It was the same thing over and over. It was like fireballs coming out the back of the engine.”
The Denver International Airport opened in February 1995, replacing the Stapleton International Airport in Central Park, Colorado. The latter was Denver’s main airport from 1929 to 1995 before DIA opened its doors.
Close Call At Denver International Airport Marks Another Concerning 2025 Aviation Incident
Though nobody was injured on the flight in Denver, it still marks another concerning aviation incident in the first quarter of 2025. It came just three days after six people — a family of five from Spain and the pilot — were killed in a Hudson River helicopter crash.
On Jan. 29, 67 people on two aircraft were killed when a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided mid-air with an American Airlines plane over the Potomac River near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Two days later, a Learjet 55 crashed in Philadelphia’s Castor Gardens neighborhood, leaving seven dead and 24 injured.
