Boeing plane issues: United Airlines Boeing 767 flight forced to turn back to Heathrow Airport due to 'battery failure'

A United Airlines Boeing 767 flight from London’s Heathrow Airport bound for Newark was forced to turn back on itself and return to Heathrow due to a battery failure onboard. The United Airlines flight UA921 departed London Heathrow at 17:50 local time yesterday (Thursday 11) and the aircraft proceeded westbound towards Newark.

As per data from RadarBox, United Airlines flight UA921 made a series of holds at the Atlantic Crossing Entry Point. From there, the decision was made to return to London Heathrow and not continue to Newark.

The aircraft did not declare an emergency via the 7700 squawk code at any point during the incident. The flight landed safely back into Heathrow Airport at 21:35 UK time.

Flight Emergency posted on X, formerly Twitter, last night: “United Airlines flight UA921 is returning to Heathrow due to a battery failure.” At 11:50pm the platform posted on X: “More info: Flight management computer failure.”

The incident comes as Boeing is under intense pressure and scrutiny since the Alaska Airlines incident on 5 January which saw a door plug blow out of a Boeing 737 Max plane shortly after take off. The fleet of planes were quickly grounded after the incident but are now back up in the air.

US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating Boeing after new claims have surfaced by another whistleblower that the company dismissed safety and quality concerns. A Boeing engineer claims the company employed shortcuts in the production of 787 and 777 jets, an agency spokesman said on Tuesday (9 April).

The allegations come from Sam Salehpour who his attorneys say was faced with threats and exclusion from meetings after he identified engineering problems that affected the structural integrity of the jets. Mr Salehpour works at Boeing’s plant in Everett, Washington and also claimed the company employed shortcuts to reduce bottlenecks during 787 Dreamliner assembly.

He said: “I am doing this not because I want Boeing to fail, but because I want it to succeed and prevent crashes from happening. The truth is Boeing can’t keep going the way it is. It needs to do a little bit better, I think.”

Mr Salehpour alleged he observed shortcuts used by Boeing to reduce bottlenecks during the 787 assembly process that placed “excessive stress on major aeroplane joints and embedded drilling debris between key joints on more than 1,000 planes”. He told reporters in a call later on Tuesday that he saw problems with misalignment in the production of the 777 widebody jet which were remedied by using force. He said: “I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the plane to get them to align.”

NationalWorld has contacted United Airlines for comment.