Debris fall from US airline hit by engine failure
A UNITED Airlines plane suffered a fiery engine failure on Saturday shortly after taking off from Denver for Hawaii, dropping massive debris on a residential area before a safe emergency landing, officials said.
A video shot from inside the aircraft, which had 231 passengers and 10 crew on board, showed the right engine ablaze and wobbling on the wing of the Boeing 777-200, its cover entirely missing as the aircraft flew over a barren landscape.
There were no injuries on the plane or on the ground, authorities said.
“I can honestly say I thought we were going to die at one point because we started dropping altitude right after the explosion,” passenger David Delucia told The Denver Post. “I grabbed my wife’s hand and said, ‘We’re done.’”
Delucia said his stepdaughter tweeted the online video, which was shot by another passenger.
“Flight UA328 from Denver to Honolulu experienced an engine failure shortly after departure, returned safely to Denver and was met by emergency crews as a precaution,” United Airlines said in a statement.
“The majority of customers originally on UA328 are currently on their way to Honolulu on a new flight,” it added, saying those who did not wish to travel immediately had been provided with hotel accommodation.
In a recording of the distress call obtained from the website LiveATC, the pilot requested emergency permission to turn back to Denver.
“Three-twenty-eight, uh, heavy. We’ve experienced engine failure, need to turn. Mayday, mayday,” he said, without obvious panic in his voice.
Residents in the Denver suburb of Broomfield found large pieces of the plane scattered around their community, including a giant circular piece of metal that landed in the yard of Kirby Klements.
“It was a little overwhelming,” he told CNN.
“It landed square on top of my truck and fell off,” he said, reporting that a separate large piece of debris had put a 1.5-meter hole in a neighbor’s roof.
Heather Solar was running a practice at a park for her girls’ soccer team when she heard an explosion, followed by debris raining down. “At first I thought we were being bombed,” Solar told the Post. “There was so much debris in the sky.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said it
was “aware of reports of debris in the vicinity of the airplane’s flight path,” adding that the agency and the National Transportation Safety Board would be investigating the incident. “If you find debris PLEASE don’t touch it or move it. The @NTSB wants all debris to remain in place for investigation,” Bloomfield police tweeted.
It posted photos of debris scattered across a sports field at a park, including one piece of the plane with a warning message painted in red: “Stand clear of hazard areas while engine is running.”
The 26-year-old 777 was powered by two Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines. Investigators will focus on what caused the accident and will look at whether a fan blade failed.
Boeing said its technical advisers would assist the NTSB with its investigation, while United pledged to “work with federal agencies investigating this incident.”
MATTHEW Cheung, chief secretary for administration of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, said yesterday that the arrival of the first batch of mainland-manufactured COVID-19 vaccines in Hong Kong will not only strengthen Hong Kong’s anti-epidemic work, but also help people to return to normal life.
Cheung said in his blog that the central government attached great importance to Hong Kong’s epidemic situation and cared deeply about Hong Kong people’s health. The first batch of 1 million doses of vaccines produced by Sinovac Biotech arrived in Hong Kong from Beijing on Friday, marking a new milestone in Hong Kong’s fight against COVID-19.
The HKSAR government has launched a territory-wide free COVID-19 vaccination program and priority vaccination will be arranged for five groups of people, including health-care staff, elderly people and people providing essential public services, Cheung said, urging people to actively participate in it.
The program will open for online appointments starting from tomorrow. People can receive the jabs at five community vaccination centers and 18 general outpatient clinics of Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority starting from February 26.
More than a thousand private doctors participating in the program are also expected to administer the Sinovac vaccine before midMarch, Cheung added.
Cheung also said that the first batch of 1 million doses of the Fosun Pharma/BioNTech vaccine are expected to arrive by the end of this month and people can receive the jabs at 24 community vaccination centers.
Meanwhile, the first shipment of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Mexico City on Saturday.
Around 200,000 doses arrived about a week after health authorities announced that Mexico’s Federal Commission for Protection Against Health Risks had authorized emergency use for the Sinovac and CanSino Biologics vaccines.
FIFTEEN COVID-19 patients, including one foreigner, were discharged from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center yesterday after making a full recovery.
Among the Chinese patients, two were from Shanghai, the Shanghai Health Commission announced.
Twenty-two local COVID-19 cases have been reported since January 21. They were infected with the virus from the same overseas source and on the same chain of transmission.
All the 15 discharged patients, with the oldest aged 65, had ordinary or mild symptoms. They were treated with a combination of anti-infection therapy, traditional Chinese medicine, nutrition and other remedies.
As the patients had to spend the Spring Festival in hospital, medical staff created decorations and provided special food to help them enjoy the special time.
A male patient from Taiwan said he was very nervous after being diagnosed. But the professionalism of local medical staff relieved his anxiety, and the special Spring Festival decoration and care gave him an unforgettable holiday.
His New Year wish is to meet his family as soon as possible.
A patient surnamed Xiao revealed that she was diagnosed with coronavirus during quarantine after arriving Shanghai from the United States on January 23.
She said she was glad that she was finally discharged yesterday, which also happened to be her birthday. It is the best birthday gift, Xiao insisted.
CHINESE scientists have published a paper in the journal Cell Research showing that the influenza A virus can aggravate COVID-19 infection in cell and animal tests.
Some experts have warned that the seasonal flu merging with the current COVID-19 pandemic may pose a larger threat to public health. But the interaction between influenza viruses and the novel coronavirus remained unclear.
The study by researchers from Wuhan University in central China’s Hubei Province provides strong experimental evidence concerning the coinfection of the two respiratory viruses. It reported for the first time that influenza A virus can enhance subsequent COVID-19 infection in cells and mice.
Researchers found that the existing infection of influenza A virus significantly promoted the entry and replication of the novel coronavirus in a variety of human respiratory tract cells and lung tissue cells, while it also elevated the COVID-19 viral load, leading to more severe lung damage in coinfected mice.
In further experiments, similar promotive effects on COVID-19 infection were not observed with several other respiratory viruses, indicating that influenza A has a unique ability to aggravate COVID-19 infection, so preventing influenza infection is of great significance during the COVID19 pandemic.
Researchers recommended both influenza vaccination and COVID-19 vaccination to people with a high risk of coinfection. They also emphasized the development of novel broad-spectrum antiviral drugs targeting more than one virus is needed.