United Airlines flight makes emergency landing at Singapore airport

A brand new United Airlines aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing roughly 45 minutes after departure on Friday morning, News.Az reports, citing PEOPLE.

United Airlines flight UA2 left Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) just after 9:30 a.m. local time on April 24, according to FlightAware data.

The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner was originally scheduled to arrive at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) approximately 15 hours later.

However, tracking information shows the aircraft diverted back to Singapore around 10:15 a.m. local time.

According to a United Airlines spokesperson, the airline said the flight was required to return due to “an electrical odor” detected onboard.

One man, Kevin Wu, who says he was a passenger on the flight, shared a photo from inside the plane on X.

“Currently on this aircraft,” the user said in response to a Flightradar24 post announcing the emergency landing. “Turning back to Singapore due to burning smell coming from air vents upon takeoff.”

He subsequently posted a picture from the tarmac and later said, “Looks like the flight will now operate with a layover in [Honolulu] for a crew change. No deplaning. Proceed to SFO afterwards.” But three hours later, he simply wrote, “Flight is officially cancelled.”

Aviation outlet AirLive reports the pilots spent about 10 minutes circling over the water to dump fuel — a standard procedure when long-haul aircraft are too heavy to land safely.

The United spokesperson confirmed that “the plane landed safely in Singapore.” They shared that there were 212 passengers and 15 crew members on board. The representative did not share any details as to whether or not passengers were accommodated with other travel arrangements.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev