747 Loses a Piece of Wing Over Pacific

A one-foot-square piece of wing covering on a United Airlines Boeing 747 peeled off on a flight over the Pacific, an airline spokesman said Friday.

Wayne Dodge, United’s general manager for New Zealand, said the piece was discovered missing from the top of the right wing when the jet landed at Auckland after a flight from Honolulu.

Repairs caused long delays for hundreds of Sydney-bound passengers and the flight was canceled.

Dodge said the missing piece of the wing’s covering was not structural and did not affect the plane’s aerodynamics.