A 25-year-old United Airlines Boeing 737 landed at an Airport in Oregon on Friday due to a missing exterior panel.
United claimed that the issue was first discovered when parked at the gate, and landed about an hour after departing San Francisco Friday morning, landing safely at its destination in Medford, Oregon.
“After the aircraft was parked at the gate, it was discovered to be missing an external panel,” the airline said. “We’ll conduct a thorough examination of the plane and perform all the needed repairs before it returns to service.”
The incident marks at least the 8th time a Boeing aircraft was involved in an incident this year.
Earlier this week, a United Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles due to a “hydraulic failure.”
The plane, an Airbus A320 carrying around 110 people, was flying from San Francisco to Mexico City when it made an emergency stop around 4:30 p.m. at Los Angeles International Airport.
“The flight landed safely and passengers were deplaned normally at the gate,” United said.
“This aircraft type has three hydraulic systems for redundancy purposes. Preliminary information shows there was only an issue with one system on this aircraft,” the airline continued.
That same day, a United Airlines Boeing 737 went off the runway and got stuck in the grass at the George W. Bush Airport in Houston, Texas.
Last Thursday, a United Airlines plane departing from San Francisco International Airport lost a tire, then fell to the ground and damaged vehicles in a parking lot.
Earlier in the week, a United Airlines flight that took off from Houston to Fort Myers was forced to turn around after one of its engines erupted in flames.
