BROOMFIELD, Colo. (KDVR) — Broomfield police continue to get calls from people finding parts of United Airlines flight 328 that had to make an emergency landing on Saturday after an engine exploded, sending debris raining down over the north metro area.
FOX31 confirmed with Arvada Police Department that someone reported finding a piece of the plane about 13 miles away from the main debris field. The homeowner shared a picture of what he discovered, but did not want to comment. The item has been turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
In all, police have gotten more than 100 reports of debris being found. Broomfield Police Department (BPD) public information officer, Rachel Welte said, “There was a moment in time we didn’t know if we had the plane down or if there was a plane that crashed in Broomfield or crashed nearby. Glad to hear it was able to land at DIA quickly.”
She said dispatchers have been overwhelmed with calls ever since the incident Saturday afternoon.
“We are still getting calls about people finding pieces, which is great. We really appreciate the enthusiasm from the community, everybody’s really been trying to help. Understandably there’s a lot of pieces over a very big area,” Welte said.
“The biggest thing we want people to know now is because we are a police department and have to return and keep answering calls for service. We can’t be completely inundated with plane calls at this point in time. We’re not plane experts, so we are just asking people just call us if you find a substantial piece of plane. So something the size of a computer monitor would be great. Look on it and see if it has an identifiable factor, a serial number, a model number, does it say United Airlines. Anything like that makes it valuable to the NTSB. Obviously, a lot of screws and bolts, we have seen a lot of that honeycomb, insulation, at this point we don’t need that, just look for those sizable parts and otherwise we don’t need to come to collect it,” Welte said.
She says they expect that people will be finding pieces of the plane for several months.
“As they get out to work in their yards. Perhaps something fell in a bush and they go out to trim the hedges. We did have a snow storm move in Saturday night, they may find something as snow begins to melt in the next couple of days.,”Welte said.
The parts are being stored at the Broomfield Police Department until the NTSB can pick them up.