Last night, a United Airlines flight from San Francisco landed into it’s scheduled destination of Medford, Oregon with a panel missing.
Local media are reporting that the panel was lost in-flight, with the plane grounded since the incident.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
UA433 – San Francisco-Medford, Oregon…
United Airlines flight UA433 is a routine scheduled flight between San Francisco and Medford, Oregon.
The affected rotation was operated by N26226.
As per data from Planespotters.net, N26226 is a 25.3 year old Boeing 737-800 that was delivered to Continental Airlines in December 1998.
Following it’s merger with United Airlines, the aircraft was handed over in October 2010.
Of the 737-800 variant, UA has 141 of them in their fleet, of which 134 are in active service and seven are parked.
Furthermore, the average fleet age of the variant at the airline is 20.1 years.
United Airlines flight UA433 departed San Francisco at 1020 local time yesterday and proceeded to Medford, Oregon.
After around one hour and 16 minutes of flight, the aircraft landed safely into MFR.
It wasn’t until after arrival that the issue surrounding the missing panel was noticed.
Photos from the Scene…
The missing panel looks to have been ripped off from under the belly, with the fairing affected by this.
N26226 has been grounded since the incident last night, with no indication into when it will be airworthy again.
A United Airlines spokesperson said the following on the incident in Medford, Oregon:
“After the aircraft was parked at the gate, it was discovered to be missing an external panel”.
“We’ll conduct a thorough examination of the plane and perform all the needed repairs before it returns to service”.
“We’ll also conduct an investigation to better understand how this damage occurred”.
There were no injuries reported amongst the 139 passengers and six crew.
It is also key to note that this incident has nothing to do with the current issues surrounding the 737 MAX family.
All eyes will be on when the United Airlines Boeing 737-800 will return to service from Medford, Oregon.
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