United says Boeing Dreamliner makes emergency landing in New Orleans
A Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft under construction at a Boeing production facility near Washington.
A brand new United Airlines 787 Dreamliner en route to Newark was forced to make an emergency landing this morning due to mechanical problems.
The 13-day-old aircraft, which was carrying 174 passengers and 10 crew members, landed safely in New Orleans, the Seattle Times reported.
"We are re-accommodating the customers on a different aircraft to Newark," United said in a statement, cited by the Chicago Tribune.
"United will work with Boeing to review the diversion and determine the cause."
The pilot of United flight 1146 noticed “multiple messages” indicating some system errors after taking off from Houston and decided to divert “out of an abundance of caution,” the Seattle Times reported, citing an unnamed source.
The plane is the third Boeing 787 Dreamliner to be delivered to United.
A Boeing spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that the aircraft maker would not provide further details about the incident until an investigation has been completed.
"As you can imagine, we're going to let the technical teams do their jobs and not speculate,” the spokeswoman said.
“We're not providing details about the event at this point in time as the teams are still working to understand it.”
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