An American Airlines flight from Chicago O’Hare to Las Vegas was forced to make an emergency landing early on Sunday morning after an ‘electrical problem’ caused the plane’s autopilot and autothrottle to disconnect while the door lights went haywire.
The issue affected American Airlines flight AA1047, which was operated by a 14-year-old Boeing 737 for what should have been the three hour flight to Las Vegas Harry Reid International Airport.
Shortly after the takeoff from O’Hare, the pilots reported being barraged with a slew of electrical issues as the autopilot and autothrottle disconnected without their input and then the takeoff configuration horn started sounding unexpectedly.
While the horn shut itself off after just 30 seconds, the pilots were told that multiple door lights were illuminating for several minutes.
The crew climbed to a maximum altitude of around 27,000 feet before looping back around to return to Chicago O’Hare, where the plane landed safely around an hour after departure.
The aircraft was then taken out of service, although engineers cleared the plane the same day and at around 10:00 pm on Sunday, it operated a delayed service from Chicago to San Francisco without any further problems being reported.
The airline described the plane diverted back to Chicago due to a “possible maintenance issue” without elaborating on what had caused the electrical issues.
American Airlines had been predicting a record-breaking Thanksgiving holiday travel period, with an estimated 8.3 million passengers expected to travel with the carrier on more than 77,000 flights from November 21 to December 3.
December 2 was anticipated to be the busiest travel day for American Airlines and that prediction could well be borne out to be true after the Transportation Security Administration reported that it had screened 3.08 million passengers at airports across the United States on Sunday – the busiest day ever in the agency’s 23-year history.
