Southwest Airlines Flight 225 made a safe emergency landing after a tire failed during takeoff (Pictures: AP/Getty Images)
A plane blew a tire during takeoff and made an emergency landing in Colorado.
Southwest Airlines Flight 225 departed Denver International Airport shortly after 6.30pm on Monday en route to Arizona but turned back to its point of origin after 41 minutes, according to FlightAware.
The Boeing 737-800 ‘returned safely’ to Denver ‘after a tire failed during takeoff’, stated Southwest on Friday.
‘Following standard Safety procedures, the pilots declared an emergency prior to landing,’ stated the airline, according to USA Today.
The Southwest Airlines plane made an emergency landing 41 minutes after takeoff (Picture: Getty Images)
‘The flight landed without incident and taxied off the runway. A separate aircraft operated the scheduled flight to Phoenix.’
No one was injured.
Southwest thanked customers for ‘their patience’ and flight crew members for ‘their professionalism’.
Boulder resident Julianna Donadio described a nerve wracking scene aboard the plane after a loud noise sounded during takeoff.
The plane landed without incident and no one was injured (Picture: Getty Images)
‘We knew we blew a tire, but we didn’t know what the landing gear situation was,’ Donadio told KDVR.
‘They started preparing us for crash position, so having our head between our knees, and they were informing the emergency exit line how to open the doors and operate potentially the slides.’
Flight attendants informed passengers that an emergency landing would ensue and ‘we started to panic a little bit’, Donadio said.
‘People were definitely crying and screaming and trying to console one another,’ she said.
Some passengers were crying and screaming when the emergency landing was announced (Picture: Getty Images)
‘When we landed everyone was cheering and clapping.’
Some passengers were reaccommodated on a 10.26pm flight out of Denver and arrived in Phoenix at 11.07, the Daily Mail reported.
Tires blowouts are rare but when they do happen, it is most commonly due to ‘under-inflation’, according to Popular Mechanics.
Southwest stated that the aircraft has redundant hydraulic systems and that at least one was operational even if one was compromised.
Monday’s incident was the latest scare to befall Southwest.
In April, Flight 3695 departing Denver had its engine fall off and strike a wing flap amid takeoff. The plane made an emergency landing at the same airport instead of continuing on to its destination in Houston.
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