A Southwest Airlines-operated Boeing 737 bound for Houston from Denver International Airport abandoned its journey after part of the engine fell off during take-off.

At around 8am on Sunday, Southwest flight 3695 was safely towed back to the airport after part of the engine cover fell off during take-off and struck the plane’s wing flap.

Footage posted on X shows the right engine covering beginning to disintegrate.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said there were no injuries following the incident; however, it occurs at a sensitive time for Boeing – only three months ago an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 suffered a mid-flight blowout of a plug filling an unused emergency exit, causing rapid decompression of the aircraft.

No one was injured in this incident either, but the FAA grounded some 737 Max 9s with a configuration similar to that of the Alaska Airlines flight.

This also comes after two fatal crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019 involving the new Max variant. Leading...