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United Airlines blames flight tipping backwards on weight imbalance

Caroline Tanner
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Caroline Tanner covers news and travel for TPG. She is a journalism graduate of Mizzou and Northwestern.
Sept. 19, 2021
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2 min read
Aircraft movements at Sydney's Kingsford Smith International Airport
United Airlines blames flight tipping backwards on weight imbalance
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United Airlines is blaming an imbalance in weight for United flight 2509 tipping backward upon landing at Lewiston Airport in Idaho over the weekend, as first reported by Simple Flying and confirmed by United.

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After a Saturday afternoon landing on September 18 at Lewiston Nez Perce County Airport (LWS), a regional airport roughly 90 miles from Spokane, Wash., the Boeing 737-900 aircraft tipped on its tail, as documented in the below photo on Twitter. Despite this, United maintains that the flight "landed without incident."

"United flight 2509 flying from Los Angeles, California to Lewiston, Idaho landed without incident. Due to a shift in weight and balance during the offloading process, the tail of the aircraft tipped backward," United said in a press statement to TPG. "No injuries were reported among our customers, crew or ground personnel. The return flight was on a different aircraft as originally planned."

Plane Spotters also verifies that the plane tipped over during disembarking.

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Featured image by Getty Images
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