One of the passengers aboard the United Airlines plane that lost a wheel Thursday as it took off from San Francisco International Airport is speaking out about the experience.
Eight seconds after United Flight 35 from San Francisco to Osaka, Japan, took off, one of the wheels from the Boeing 777's left rear landing gear fell off.
For passengers aboard the plane, it all seemed like a routine takeoff at first.
"Everything just seemed normal really as far as takeoffs go," Cory Hynek said. "Just anxious having a group of 19 of us doing this mission trip to Osaka."
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He said passengers didn't know what happened until about 10 minutes into the flight when the pilot made an announcement over the speaker system.
"Captain goes on and says air traffic control tells us there's an issue, they're looking into it," Hynek said. "And then 10 minutes after that they said that we lost a wheel on takeoff."
Hynek said none of the passengers found out about where the wheel landed for a while.
It smashed at least two cars in an employee parking lot at the end of the runway and then bounced and landed several yards away at a rental car lot.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board aren't saying much about the incident yet.
Veteran airline pilot Doug Rice said this is just the start of what will likely be an exhaustive investigation by the feds and others.
"They will gather information," Rice said. "They with gather a group together of experts. There will be somebody from United, somebody from Boeing, somebody from the wheel manufacturer, the brake manufacturer, and they will dissect exactly what happened."
For Hynek and his group, there was some concern, but he said the cabin crew kept everyone calm.
He said they didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until his son saw the plane dumping fuel as it was diverted to Los Angeles for an emergency landing.
"You usually don't see fuel being emptied out of a plane like that, and then we're missing a wheel, so it was a little uneasy for a little bit," Hynek said.
The jet they were aboard landed safely.
On the ground, the group Hynek was traveling with, which included 16 teenagers, was happy to get meal vouchers during the unanticipated three-hour layover in Los Angeles.
Some of them were a bit uneasy after seeing videos of the plane losing the wheel and the damage to the cars below, but they continued on their trip and landed safely in Osaka.
