United Airlines plane loses tire, lands safely at LAX after being diverted from San Francisco

A United Airlines Boeing 777 plane has landed safely at LAX after losing a tire shortly after takeoff from San Francisco International Airport around 1:20 p.m. on Thursday.

United flight 35 was headed to Osaka, Japan with a total of 249 people on board. 

SkyCAL was live over LAX when the plane touched down with no apparent issues. It taxied to a gate where passengers were let out. United said that a new plane will be dispatched to take passengers to their final destination.

In a statement, United Airlines said that the 777-200 has six tires on each of its two main landing gear struts and is designed to land safely with missing or damaged tires.  

No injuries were reported and the cause of the wheel failure will be investigated by the FAA.

You can see the wheel detaching from the plane in this YouTube video. It occurs at approximately 11:24:22 in the time code burned on the bottom left.

 Credit: Peter/LA Flights YouTube Channel