A United Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which was just about to cross the Atlantic Ocean, was forced to make an emergency landing on September 26 after the cockpit computer displays suddenly went blank and the flight management system entered a ‘degraded mode.’
The nine-year-old Boeing 787 (registration: N27958) had departed Los Angeles International Airport at around 1:30 pm for what should have been a routine 12-hour flight to London Heathrow but ended up diverting to United’s main hub at Chicago O’Hare.
According to Canada’s Transportation Safety Board, the aircraft with as many as 257 passengers onboard, was flying at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet in a remote region over Hudson Bay and the cockpit computer displays on the Captain’s side of the plane suddenly went blank.
At the same time, both flight management computers entered an emergency degraded mode, which limited the capabilities of the aircraft, including taking lateral navigation out of action.
The pilots of flight UA231 were forced to declare a Mayday and then started to divert to Chicago O’Hare, where United has a major maintenance base. It took more than two hours for the plane to reach Chicago but the pilots managed to get the jet on the ground without incident.
The flight to London Heathrow then had to be canceled and passengers booked onto alternative flights, while engineers got to work fixing the system issues. The aircraft remained on the ground for more than a day but has been back in service since September 28.
The incident occurred just days before the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed that it was dropping a safety probe into United Airlines after coming to the conclusion that there were no ‘significant’ concerns that needed to be addressed by the agency.
The FAA launched its rare safety investigation into United in March following a slew of mishaps, which included an incident in which the landing gear of a United 737MAX collapsed after the plane rolled onto the grass at the end of the runway at Houston Intercontinental Airport on March 8.
In a short statement at the start of October, the FAA said it was wrapping up its probe after finding no “significant safety issues” at the airline.
