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Silhouette of a Boeing aircraft (symbolic image)
Photo: Joshua Roberts/ REUTERS
United Airlines Flight 433 landed as scheduled at Rogue Valley International Medford Airport in the US state of Oregon on Friday afternoon.
There were 139 passengers and a crew of six on board.
They had taken off from San Francisco at 10:20 a.m.
A routine flight.
But during the subsequent inspection, the employees made an astonishing discovery: part of the outer paneling was missing from the underside of the aircraft.
United Airlines confirmed corresponding media reports.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced an investigation.
The local newspaper "Rogue Valley Times" posted a photo of the hole in the plane on X:
"We will thoroughly examine the aircraft and carry out any necessary repairs before it is put back into service," promised an airline spokesman.
He also announced an investigation “to better understand how this damage occurred.”
The airport in Oregon briefly interrupted operations to check the runway and the airfield for debris - without results.
The Rogue Valley Times quotes local airport manager Amber Judd as saying: "They don't know where they lost it."
The plane had apparently flown from Nashville to San Francisco that day and then from there to Oregon.
She was scheduled to fly on to Denver in the afternoon.
However, airport manager Judd says the plane will probably "stay here for some time."
Since the beginning of January, an almost new Boeing 737-9 Max aircraft from Alaska Airlines lost a part of the fuselage while climbing after takeoff, the aircraft manufacturer has been under increased surveillance.
The US accident investigation authority NTSB assumes that four fastening bolts were missing from the torn out fuselage fragment of the Alaska Airlines plane.
According to the FAA, the United Airlines Boeing aircraft now affected was built at the end of 1998.
Boeing itself did not want to comment on the current case.
vet/AP