United Flight Struck by a Rabbit?

It’s almost Easter.  And in a year filled with flying chaos . . . THIS seems fitting:

A United flight from Denver to Edmonton, Canada had to make an emergency landing on Sunday . . . after an apparent encounter with a BUNNY.

Shortly after the flight took off, the 153 passengers onboard heard a loud bang, and felt a “significant vibration.”  And outside the window, there were blasts of fire coming from one of the plane’s engines.

The pilots got the plane down safely after roughly 75 minutes in the air.

The passengers were a bit shaken, naturally, but nobody was injured.  There’s footage of the panic onboard when the FIREBALLS were seen outside the windows.

The passengers were put on another plane, and the grounded plane was inspected, repaired, and has since returned to service.

It’s unclear exactly what happened . . . but authorities believe a RABBIT either jumped or was sucked into the right engine while the plane was on the ground, and that caused it to backfire during the climb.

In fact, the pilot even said, “Rabbit through the Number Two.  That’ll do it.”

There’s no official word on the condition of the rabbit, but it’s safe to say that it won’t be hopping into any more engines.

In general, wildlife strikes are fairly common.  The FAA says there were over 20,000 in the United States last year.  Most of those are BIRDS.  Rabbits are rare.  There were only four rabbit strikes last year.

(ABC 7 / ABC 30)