KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — A plane that left Knoxville on Thursday night was diverted to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport after a mechanical issue forced the plane to land before making it to its intended destination of Houston, a United Airlines spokesperson confirmed.
Flight 4390 landed safely in Dallas after departing Knoxville at 6:40 p.m. and United said they worked to rebook customers on the next available flight.
United's statement regarding the incident:
ExpressJet Airlines flight 4390, operating as United Express from Knoxville to Houston, diverted to Dallas and landed safely following a mechanical issue. Customers deplaned normally and we are working to get our customers on their way to their destination as soon as possible.
United also said the aircraft was being inspected by its maintenance team.
"It shouldn’t impact other flights, but we always encourage our customers to check the status of their flight on united.com or the app for the latest updates," a spokesperson told 10News.
The plane was a Bombardier CRJ-200, an ExpressJet Airlines representative told 10News.
Lynn Lunsford, an FAA spokesperson, said the plane diverted after the pilots reported a malfunction with the instrument panel.
Twitter user Rodney D. Giles posted a video of the incident after tweeting that his parents were on the plane.
In the video, someone came over the cabin loudspeaker and said they lost two cockpit screens.
"Now if we kept flying, we'd lose them all, eventually, because there's not enough coolant. There's tremendous heat behind those screens," that person continues to say over the speaker.
The crew over the loudspeaker then said that they had to land as soon as possible because if they continued "eventually we'd be flying blind."
They also said it was unlikely the aircraft was going anywhere that night.
10News will continue to update this story as we receive more information.