United B738 at Washington on Oct 13th 2015, flaps failure

Last Update: October 27, 2015 / 20:28:35 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Oct 13, 2015

Classification
Incident

Airline
United

Flight number
UA-1618

Departure
Washington Dulles, United States

Destination
Las Vegas, United States

Aircraft Registration
N37290

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

A United Boeing 737-800, registration N37290 performing flight UA-1618 from Washington Dulles,DC to Las Vegas,NV (USA) with 154 people on board, was climbing out of Dulles Airport's runway 30 when the crew reported they had a flaps problem and needed to level off at 7000 feet. The crew requested vectors to keep them in the area while they were working the checklists and consulting with maintenance, they were still trying but it looked like they would need to return to Dulles Airport. After holding for about 100 minutes the crew declared emergency, requested runway 1C, they would need to burn off fuel for another 20-25 minutes. The crew advised their approach speed would be higher than normal, approach speed would be 180 KIAS until touchdown. The aircraft landed safely on runway 01C at a higher than normal speed (about 185 knots over ground) about 140 minutes after departure.

A replacement Boeing 737-900 registration N75436 reached Las Vegas with a delay of 4.5 hours.

A passenger reported that the flaps appeared to have become asymmetric, the inner flaps appeared to be at 15 degrees, the outer flaps more like 5 degrees. The captain announced the flaps would neither retract nor extend and they would need to do an overspeed landing. During the landing roll the engines were in full reverse, it felt like maximum brakes. The aircraft stopped on the runway slightly to the left of the runway center line, emergency services inspected the brakes but did not need to cool them down, a few minutes later the aircraft was able to taxi to the apron with emergency services in trail, the brakes were again inspected at the stand. Upon disembarking the passenger noticed that the flaps were still half way extended. The replacement aircraft departed about one hour after they disembarked the initial aircraft.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Oct 13, 2015

Classification
Incident

Airline
United

Flight number
UA-1618

Departure
Washington Dulles, United States

Destination
Las Vegas, United States

Aircraft Registration
N37290

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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