Rabbit sucked into United Airlines’ plane engine causes ‘giant fireball,’ forces flight to make emergency landing

A United Airlines formation made an emergency landing aft a occurrence apparently caused by a rabbit getting sucked into 1 of its engines earlier takeoff complete nan weekend.

Dramatic video showed repeated flashes of occurrence shooting from 1 of United Flight 2325’s engines soon aft it departed Denver International Airport connected its measurement to Edmonton, Canada.

The formation unit tin beryllium heard connected LiveATC audio requesting nan level beryllium inspected for an motor fire, which nan aviator confirmed was caused by a rabbit strike.

“Rabbit done nan number 2 [engine], that’ll do it,” nan aviator said, according to ABC News.

Passenger Scott Wolff told “Good Morning America” that he heard a “loud bang” aft nan unfortunate bunny was ingested by nan turbine, followed by “significant vibration successful nan plane” arsenic it continued its ascent.

“Every fewer moments location was a backfire coming from nan engine, a elephantine fireball down it,” he said.

“Everyone successful nan level past started to panic.”

The flight, which was carrying 153 passengers and six crew, landed safely backmost successful Denver astir 8:05 p.m., nan Federal Aviation Administration told nan outlet. Then nan passengers were put connected a different craft and continued connected to Edmonton.

“Our formation from Denver to Edmonton (UA2325) returned safely to Denver to reside a imaginable wildlife strike,” United said successful a statement.

The FAA reported much than 20,000 craft wildlife strikes successful 2024 unsocial — astir of them birds. Just 4 rabbit strikes were reported during that clip period.