747 Jet Lands Safely in Japan After 3 Engines Quit

A United Airlines jumbo jet en route from Los Angeles to Japan with 258 people aboard landed safely on one engine Monday after two of its engines stopped over the Pacific and a third shut off just before landing.

UAL Flight 97 was 39,000 feet above the Pacific and about 125 miles from Narita airport when the first engine stopped, Kyodo News Service reported. Quoting airport and airline officials it did not identify, the news agency said the pilot noticed problems with the fuel gauges.

United spokesman Katsuro Isa said that half an hour after the first engine stopped--45 minutes before landing--a second engine also quit, and the pilot radioed the Narita control tower for an “expedited approach.” A third engine shut off shortly before the plane landed.

Isa said emergency vehicles stood by at Narita, 40 miles northeast of Tokyo, but the Boeing 747 taxied to the terminal under its own power.

None of the 239 passengers and 19 crew members on the flight were injured, he said.

Passengers applauded when the Boeing 747-100 settled on the runway, the news agency said.

Kazuko Kato, who was returning from her honeymoon, told Kyodo: “I expected death at any moment.”

Boeing spokesman David Jimenez in Seattle, Wash., said he was not surprised that the jet landed safely.

“Almost any aircraft we have is capable of operating on one engine,” he said. But Jimenez said he did not know of another 747 losing power in three engines.