A British Airways plane lost a wheel during takeoff in Las Vegas on Monday night.
The rear wheel from the London-bound Airbus A350-1000 appeared to break off the aircraft after the jet departed Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport.
Dramatic video footage shared by flight tracking website Flightradar showed how the tyre dropped from the back of the plane, after some sparks could be seen coming from the right main landing gear.
Flight BA274 continued to London Heathrow, where it made a ‘safe and uneventful’ landing following the nine-hour journey, Flightradar said.
It was not clear what caused the wheel to detach.
A spokesperson for British Airways told Daily Mail that the airline is assisting with an investigation following the incident involving the wheel.
‘Safety and security underpins everything we do, and we’re supporting the authorities with their investigations,’ the spokesperson said.
Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) said it was ‘aware of an incident involving a British Airways aircraft that departed LAS last night and continued on to London, where it landed safely without further incident.’
A British Airways plane lost a wheel during takeoff in Las Vegas on Monday night. Picture shows the moment the tyre dropped off the plane’s landing gear
Pictured: Flight BA274 taking off from Las Vegas’ Harry Reid International Airport on Monday night just moments before the wheel fell off
The tyre was retrieved from the airfield, and there were no reported injuries or damage to airport property.
The incident involving the Airbus comes after the plane manufacturer issued a major recall of its widely used A320 family of jets back in November due to a software error.
The sweeping recall affected more than half of the global fleet and caused travel disruptions worldwide.
The setback was among the largest recalls affecting Airbus in its 55-year history and comes weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered model. At the time Airbus issued its bulletin to the plane’s more than 350 operators, some 3,000 A320-family jets were in the air.
The fix mainly involved reverting to earlier software and was relatively simple, but it meant that airlines from the US to South America, Europe, India and New Zealand faced flight delays and cancellations as a result.
Just days after the software error grounded thousands of planes, a new issue was discovered with Airbus’ A320 jets.
The company said in early December it had identified a supplier quality issue affecting a limited number of A320 metal panels.
An Airbus spokesperson said at the time: ‘Airbus confirms it has identified a supplier quality issue affecting a limited number of A320 metal panels.
A spokesperson for British Airways told Daily Mail that the airline is assisting with an investigation following the incident
‘As it always does when faced with quality issues in its supply chain, Airbus is taking a conservative approach and is inspecting all aircraft potentially impacted – knowing that only a portion of them will need further action to be taken.
‘The source of the issue has been identified, contained, and all newly produced panels conform to all requirements.’
A spokesperson said the problem stemmed from a supplier, whom they declined to name, and said the issue was related to quality control rather than safety.
