Man recounts experience on United flight diverted due to damage to one of its wings

A United Airlines plane bound for Boston, Massachusetts, from San Francisco on Monday made an emergency landing in Denver after the right wing of the Boeing 757 plane was damaged.United Airlines confirmed that Flight 354 was diverted because of an issue with a slat on the wing of the plane. It landed safely in Denver at 5:28 p.m. local time.Kevin Clarke recorded the video of the damage to the wing of the plane and described what he felt. Watch the video above to hear Clarke's experience."Wheels up, and I hear this incredible loud vibration like I've never heard," Clarke said. "It was like, what was that?""You could really see how much damage was to the wing and to the tip of the flap, and that was my biggest concern, is this going to come apart when we try to land," said Clarke."Just about to land in Denver, with the wing coming apart on the plane. It came apart when we took off in San Francisco, and we're just about on the ground. Can't wait for this flight to be over," Clarke can be heard saying on the video. "They've got another plane waiting for us. Touchdown any second, and the nightmare will be over." Col. Steve Ganyard, a contributor to ABC News, says slats help the airplane fly more slowly and controllably. "What we're seeing there is the trailing edge of that slat where the damage was done."Gaynard says the crew was fortunate the damage was located where it was. "If the damage had been more to the front part, it could have affected the controllability of the airplane," Gaynard said. "Luckily, in this case it was in the rear and it really didn't have much effect on how the airplane handled.""Any damage to the leading edge of a wing is bad because that wing no longer functions the way it was designed to," Gaynard said. The 165 passengers on the trip arrived in Boston around 2:45 a.m. Tuesday, several hours late and on a different plane than the one on which they started.Online records indicate the plane is a 29-year-old Boeing 757 plane, which originally went into service in 1994 with Continental Airlines. Gaynard said the NTSB will want to find out what happened since there are lots of other 757s in use that are approaching the same age as this aircraft."When you see this kind of break, it could be a fatigue," Gaynard said. "That airplane is fairly old and perhaps the part just gave way because of age or because of use, or it could have been some sort of maintenance problem where it wasn't properly rigged and it was rubbing against the wing itself."