Watch: Pilots of United Airlines Plane Perform Rejected Takeoff At High-Speed After Flames Erupt From Engine

A United Airlines plane preparing to take off from Beijing for a 10-hour flight to San Francisco made an emergency stop on the runway on Tuesday after a loud bang and flames spurted from the right-hand engine.

United Airlines flight UA889, operated by a 27-year-old Boeing 777-200 with two Pratt & Witney PW4090 engines, was accelerating along the runway when the pilots received an alert in the cockpit, forcing them to perform a rejected takeoff at high speed.

The airport fire service rushed to the side of the plane, which remained stranded on Runway 1 at Beijing Capital International Airport, and doused the engine with water as passengers looked on from within the plane.

Some eyewitnesses caught the moment the engine failed on camera as they were filming what they thought was going to be an otherwise normal takeoff.

In a statement, a spokesperson for United confirmed the incident, saying: “United flight 889 from Beijing to San Francisco on Monday aborted its takeoff while still on the ground after losing power in one engine.”

“The aircraft safely came to a stop, and passengers deplaned to buses on the runway. We arranged for hotel rooms for our customers and scheduled a new flight on a different aircraft, which has since departed.”

No injuries were reported among the 229 passengers onboard or any of the crew members. The cause of the engine failure is yet to be established.

Matt’s take – it was the right call not to evacuate the aircraft

In a seemingly serious situation like this, you might imagine that the pilots would order an evacuation via the emergency slides, but the far calmer approach to keep everyone onboard the plane was, it appears, the right call in this incident.

Evacuating via emergency slides is inherently dangerous and can lead to serious injuries, including burns from special ‘slow down’ strips built into the slides, as well as fractures, sprains, and head injuries.

In other words, emergency slides should only be used when remaining on the aircraft is going to create an even bigger risk of injury or death. In this case, the flames were containe,d and there was no evidence that there was a fire that was out of control or likely to quickly spread.

Flight attendants would have been acting as the eyes and ears of the pilots and would have immediately reported any development that might change the risk assessment of the flight crew–perhaps necessitating an emergency evacuation.