Frightening reason packed Boeing 777 flying from Denver to Hawaii made emergency landing in San Francisco
A packed United Airlines passenger jet was forced to make an emergency landing in San Francisco after a faulty alarm indicated a cargo door was open.
United Airlines Flight 1731, carrying 360 passengers and 10 crew members, was headed from Kona International Airport in Hawaii to Denver International Airport when the pilot got the nerve-wracking alert early Monday morning.
A cargo door opening mid-flight poses a serious threat to the safety of everyone on board, as it can cause a rapid decrease in cabin pressure and oxygen.
Believing one of the aircraft's doors may not be properly secured, the pilot diverted the Boeing 777 to San Francisco International Airport about six hours into the flight.
The airplane safely landed at around 3:45am local time, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced in a statement. The agency is investigating the incident.
All of the affected passengers boarded different flights to make it to Denver on Monday morning.
United officials confirmed the cargo door sensor sounding off was due to a technical issue. The door was secure the whole flight.
An airline spokesperson told Business Insider the plane made its unexpected landing to 'address a malfunctioning door sensor.' They pointed to the aircraft being 28 years old.
In March 2024, an Alaska Airlines plane experienced the opposite scenario - a cargo actually did open up, but it triggered no alert to flight staff.
Alaska Airlines Flight 1437 from Los Cabos, Mexico, arrived at Portland International Airport with one of the doors slightly ajar.
Photos obtained by KOIN 6 showed the Boeing 737 after landing, in which the door was seen cracked open.
It's unclear how long the door was open for, but the flight did not make an emergency landing.
There was no indication that the door was open during the flight, according to crew members, so it may have popped open once the plane reached the ground.
Regardless, the incident was still described as a 'pretty major defect' by aviation expert Joe Schwieterman.
'It affects a lot of the electrical equipment in that cargo hold. So, it is troublesome that you may have a plane where some things like this went undetected,' he told KOIN 6.
The expert said that such a defect should have triggered a sensor, which it did not appear to do.
The horrifying event of a cargo door flying open mid-air is unlikely and considered 'impossible' above a 10,000-foot altitude, ABC reported.
'At cruising altitude there is enough pressure inside the cabin that it pushes the door against the hull of the airplane,' ABC News contributor and former Marine Col. Steve Ganyard told the outlet.
'As the airplane descends, then the pressure begins to equalize. It is possible at very low altitudes...for that door to be opened while the aircraft is still in flight.'
A fatal cargo door related incident did occur in 1974 on a Turkish Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10, Business Insider reported.
The door's latch came loose and led to rapid decompression on the plane, killing all 346 people onboard.
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