A flight from San Francisco made an emergency landing in Honolulu, United States on February 13, after a piece of cover came off the plane’s right engine. Passengers tweet states that the incident occurred less than an hour before United Airlines flight 1175 was set to land in Honolulu. Passengers heard a loud bang and felt the plane shaking violently. People who were sitting on the right side looked out their windows and saw pieces of metal flying. By the time the plane landed safely in Honolulu around 40 minutes later, the engine was bare as its insides were on full display. However, the reason behind the malfunction is not yet clear.

The pilots immediately sent out a distress call and were forced to make an emergency landing. The captions shared on Twitter by the passengers left everyone in fright. A google engineer on board the flight, Erik Haddad, had a clear view of the uncovered engine and remained calm throughout the incident. He uploaded a spree of photos of the wrecked engine on social media.

The plane was flying over the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco.

As the engineers studies the damage

Another passenger, Maria Falaschi tweeted “scariest flight of my life”.

A statement from United Airlines said that the flight landed safely at 12:38 pm local time. The official was quoted in a report saying, “United flight 1175 traveling to Honolulu from San Francisco landed safely after the pilots called for an emergency landing because of an issue with the #2 engine. Our pilots followed all necessary protocols to safely land the aircraft”.

Despite the dramatic landing of the flight no injuries to any of the passengers or crew members were reported. Media reports said that similar malfunctions have happened before. In 2016, an American Airlines flight from Phoenix to San Francisco turned back after part of the engine cowling fell off. No one was injured as it landed safely. These events are frightening but we acknowledge the courage of the pilots, cabin crews and passengers who made the landing safe.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 14, 2018 03:32 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).