A United Airlines flight bound for Tokyo was forced to return to Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia on Saturday after one of its engine’s lost power.

United flight 803, which had 275 passengers and 15 crew members onboard, left Dulles for Tokyo’s Haneda Airport at around 12:30 p.m. Shortly after takeoff, one of the Boeing jet’s engine’s failed and the plane circled in the air for over an hour until it safely returned to the airport.

No injuries were reported from the incident, but a brush fire was sparked near the Dulles runway by the plane’s engine cover that blew off and fell to the ground. Smoke could be seen billowing into the air across the tarmac.

The Federal Aviation Administration is now investigating, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.

The engine failure on Flight 803 is the latest incident in a long year for air travel, particularly in airspace around Washington, D.C.

Back in January, an American Airlines flight and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided over the Potomac River, killing 67 people. Then, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, which ended in November, resulted in staffing issues and lengthy delays at most major hubs.

The tragic crash in January has been brought back into the spotlight after the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act last weekend, the yearly bill to fund the Pentagon.

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Included in the over 3,000-page bill is a provision that requires military aircraft operating training missions in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Area Special Flight Rules Area to provide “warning of the proximity of such aircraft to nearby commercial aircraft in a manner compatible with the traffic alert and collision avoidance system of such commercial aircraft.”

It has recently been hit with backlash from the National Transportation Safety Board and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, as well as a bipartisan group of senators, who say it rolls back safety measures put in place after the Potomac crash.

, 2025-12-14 02:30:00, , Washington Examiner, %%https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon.png?w=32, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Zach LaChance