The Federal Aviation Administration has reported that a wing panel was missing from a United Airlines Boeing 737 on a flight between Los Angeles & Las Vegas.
Information has come to light regarding this incident, as we will explore further.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
United Airlines UA1960 – Los Angeles to Las Vegas: Wing Panel Missing…
United Airlines flight UA1960, which suffered the missing wing panel, is a routine scheduled flight between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
The aircraft operating this flight is registered as N24224.
As per data from Planespotters.net, N24224 is a 25.4 year old Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
It started out life with Continental Airlines in December 1998.
Following the merger with United Airlines, the aircraft was transferred to the UA registry in October 2010.
Of the 737-800 variant, UA has 141 of them in the fleet.
Within the 141, all but seven are in active service.
Furthermore, average fleet age of the variant at the airline stands at 20.2 years.
United Airlines flight UA1960, which lost a wing panel, departed Los Angeles at 2039 local time on April 10 and proceeded to Las Vegas.
As per The Aviation Herald, the flight operated smoothly with no problems.
It wasn’t until after landing that a post-flight inspection showed the missing wing panel from the United Airlines aircraft.
Aircraft Returned to Service The Next Day…
Data from RadarBox shows that the United Airlines 737 was grounded for around 19 hours due to the wing panel incident on the Los Angeles-Las Vegas flight.
It operated the return back to LAX, and then continued operating flights to the likes of Denver & Seattle.
Furthermore, no additional incidents have been reported with the aircraft since.
With the airline under scrutiny by the FAA at the moment, this will no doubt be another incident investigated under the audit.
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