A car was crushed when a tire from a Boeing 777 came off during takeoff on Thursday. The United Airlines jet was departing San Francisco International Airport for Osaka, Japan when the incident occurred. One nearby planespotter caught the moment on video, while a local reporter found the smashed-up car.
United flight 35 from San Francisco to Osaka lost a tire from one its main landing gear struts on departure. The flight is diverting to Los Angeles. The tire landed in a parking lot for airport staff, narrowly missing a worker named William by just two cars. After hitting the car, the tire then went through a fence and into a Hertz parking lot. Fortunately, nobody was injured in the incident.
A passenger on the flight, Evan Schroeder, reported that a message went out on the intercom stating that 'an object was interfering with the plane.' Half an hour later, as the jet dumped fuel to make an emergency landing, passengers were informed that 'Air traffic control had let them know it was actually a wheel that fell off during takeoff.'
The 777-200 aircraft has six tires on each of its two main landing gear struts and is designed to land safely with missing or damaged tires, according to a United Airlines representative. After two hours in the air, the plane successfully landed at Los Angeles International Airport, as shown by data from Flightradar24.
