United Airlines flight from Knoxville to Houston is forced to divert to Dallas after overheated cockpit screens went BLANK in mid-air and pilot feared he would have to ‘fly blind’
- Flight from Knoxville to Houston was forced to divert to Dallas mid-journey
- United Airlines plane suddenly suffered a malfunction with its cockpit screens
- Captain told passengers the if flight continued all monitors would have failed
A United Airlines flight had to be diverted when the screens in the cockpit suddenly went blank in mid-air.
Passengers on board the plane traveling from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Houston were forced land at a different destination on Thursday evening.
Mechanical problems mid-flight meant that Flight 4390 had to land at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport instead.
The captain told passengers that if the flight continued he would have been ‘flying blind’.
A video of the moment the captain announced the plane had landed in Dallas and that it was due the screens malfunctioning was posted in Twitter.
The captain of Flight 4390 told passengers Flight 4390 had to be diverted to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport due to the cockpit screens malfunctioning mid-flight
Rodney Giles said his parents were traveling on the flight saying in his post that ‘something is on fire in the plane’.
But the clip confirmed the diversion was due to a malfunction with the cockpit monitors and that if the plane did not land all the screens would eventually fail.
The captain is heard saying in the video: ‘So you may be able to see we lost two of our screens.
‘Now if we kept flying we’d lose them all eventually, because there’s not enough cooling. There is tremendous heat behind those screens.
The United Airlines plane suffered a malfunction on its way to Houston and had to be diverted to Dallas (file photo)
‘If we had continued eventually, I’d be flying blind. So, that’s why we are in Dallas right now. It is unlikely this aircraft is going anywhere tonight.’
The plane landed safely on the tarmac and passengers were booked on a different flight to Houston, a United Airlines airline spokesman told ABC News.
Officials said that as part of normal safety procedures fire trucks met the aircraft upon arrival, but there was no fire.
United Airlines also confirmed passengers go off the plane normally.