Cockpit Fire Prompts Emergency Landing in DC

A United Airlines flight from New York to Los Angeles was forced to make an emergency landing last night when an electrical fire broke out in the cockpit, the AP reports. Official details are sparce, but one passenger says he smelled something burning about 30 minutes into the flight, and saw someone carrying a fire extinguisher into the cockpit; passengers seated near the front of the plane photographed flames in the cockpit.

The plane landed at Dulles Airport; according to a spokesman, all 105 passengers and seven crew members were safe. Ashley Olsen, Californication's Pamela Adlon and Jersey Boys Jarrod Spector were also on the flight, says ET. The same passenger who talked to AP told ET that the windshield cracked, obscuring "the pilot's ability to conduct a visual landing." (More United Airlines stories.)