United Forced to Cancel Some Flights After Not Performing Inspections

United Airlines this week was forced to cancel 25 flights utilizing Boeing 777-200 equipment after the carrier failed to perform maintenance on the aircrafts.

United self-reported the issue to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), admitting it did not subject the planes to the required maintenance of the wing leading-edge panel, according to Reuters News Service.

“We’ve completed inspections on 10 of those aircraft and are working with the FAA to return others to service while inspections are ongoing over the next two weeks,” United said Tuesday in a statement to Reuters.

The FAA said it was “looking into the circumstances that led to the missed inspections.”

The Boeing 777-200 has had issues going back to early last year. In February of 2021, United grounded all 52 of the Boeing 777 airplanes powered by Pratt & Whitney Series 4000 engines in its fleet. That followed an incident when a United flight from Denver to Honolulu had to around and make an emergency landing after pieces of an engine fell from the sky and landed in a suburban Denver neighborhood.

Some 15 months later, in May of this year, the FAA cleared all 52 planes to fly again.