we have as much of the debris enclosed as possible so we can keep it in tact for the ntsb. we have officers across not just commons park but redd ly, crime tape everywhere. so this is a pretty extensive project and we'll stay here to help the ntsb as long as possible to secure the area but guessing it's going to be quite a while. >> forgive me if you've ever covered this. i apologize. >> it's okay. >> have you gotten reports of damage specifically of debris coming down? >> i have heard reports there were some homes damaged. the extent of the damage, i have not been able to narrow down at this point. so there are reports of that. it looks like some of the biggest pieces came down in the north moor area near 13th and elm wood. >> is it a miracle nobody was injured? >> i'm shocked. this is a popular spot in broomfield. we have the plagds. this park on a day like today when it's not cold as last weekend, we could have hundreds of people here and the fact we're not getting reports of any injuries is absolutely shocking at this point. it's amazing. >> are you running into problems of people trying to touch the debris. >> we have seen people touching the debrised on social media. a lot of curiosity, we understand, but please leave it in place. they can call 303-438-6400. let our dispatchers know and we'll make sure. we did send out a code red alert, emergency notification system in broomfield to about 1400 residents around this vicinity just letting them know once again, please don't touch the debris. we want to keep it in tact for the ntsb. >> on a personal level, on that kind of emotional level, when you first started hearing reports that either a plane had crashed or something was falling from the sky, what was going through your agency and yourself personally? >> yeah, actually, i'm a broomfield resident. i live and work in broomfield and i was out running errands. a family member called me first and said they heard the explosion and honestly, within seconds, my work phone started ringing and by the time i was able to look at social media and see some of the photos that were coming, my heart dropped and when i saw some of the sizes of the pieces, i thought, oh my goodness, we're going to have injuries or much more extensive damage. and thankfully, at this point in time, we have not heard of any extensive injuries or any at all. >> do you think the whole thing could have been a lot worse in this area? >> yeah, exactly. it could have been. we could have had people at the dog park with their kids playing soccer. even weekends in the summertime and the spring where we have hundreds, thousands of kids on this turf field because we have soccer going and because of covid right now and it's still wintertime, we don't have a lot of the teams playing but during the summer day, you see a lot of kids out on these turf fields. >> what happens now? ntsb, fbi, what comes up now? >> so we'll secure the area. take initial witness statements from people that have debris in their yard and then we will eventually turn the investigation over to the ntsb and they'll determine what happened. so really, we're just going to assist them from this point on. any information that our dispatchers gathered, we'll make sure we provide that to them and then of course, work in conjunction with them to help them with whatever we need. >> are you the only municipality having a response like this or the entire metro area? >> i don't know if any other municipalities. i can say i've been in contact with other public information officers from other departments in the area and i have not heard if they've experienced debris. as far as i know, broomfield was the only area impacted. anything else, guys? if you don't think you'll need any more sound, i'll probably head out from this area in a little bit. >> you are live in the cnn newsroom. i'm erica hill in new york for ana cabrera and we follow this breaking news right now. terrifying scene in residential neighborhood outside of denver. broomfield, colorado and the house you see on your screen right now, if you'll look through that tree, you'll see a giant ring. that's a piece of a commercial airliner. boeing 777 in the front yard of this colorado home. one of several pieces, massive debris field. details still coming in. here's what we can tell you right now. flight 328 which was taking off from denver international airport. en route to honolulu and was able to turn around and land safely but in that ensuing time, pieces of debris from the plane falling on to several residential streets, we spoke with the gentleman who saw and heard what happened. he described what he heard as a sonic boom and then said he saw a black cloud of smoke and all of a sudden, things started to drop from the sky. he realized eventually it was debris. took his children, he was at the playground with them. took cover and ultimately made his way up to the house where he saw the giant ring in front of him. smoke with the homeowner who told him that debris bounced off of the rv and ultimately landing in his front yard. we heard from the spokeswoman from the broomfield police department. she's shocked there have been no reports of injuries thus far. it's a beautiful day in the area. she said it's much nicer than it was last week. a lot of people out and about. this is in a neighborhood. the debris landing. a lot of people out today and just to give you a sense of how big the debris field is, we can tell you this. they don't know yet how big it is but the spokeswoman for the police department say they use an unprecedented amount of crime scene tape because they want to keep this contained. the ntsb and don't want people to pick up or touch the debris. what we just heard from the spokeswoman from the police department, what more have we learned about what happened? >> what a stroke of luck here. when you hear from the police department in broomfield that nobody was on the soccer fields there and that this debris that rained down from this united airlines flight 328, this boeing 777 that had just taken off according to the faa from denver international airport bound for honolulu and neighbors tell us from on the ground that they heard this explosion and then debris started coming down in their yards. you could see some of this here right now in the soccer field but also we've seen in people's front yards, it looks like pieces of the engine and that would match up. the problem was with the right engine of the plane before it returned back to denver international airport. what we learn here is a story that will play out that was remarkable flying by this very professional flight crew, aided by air traffic control. so remarkable. this is the first time i'm seeing this image and you could see the circular part in this person's front yard here of his home. that looks to me like the very first portion of the engine nacelle. so when you hear neighbors talk about a loud boom, you have to wonder about the force of that boom that took place potentially in that right engine to knock these parts loose, very well fortified, very highly engineered airplane and then having to fly it back. gosh, i mean, really good flying by the flight crew and coordination by the front of the back to do this successfully. it was definitely not an easy job. >> i'm sure it wasn't and we did hear that the plane landed safely. all the passengers were able to get off but based on the images coming out, what does it tell you about the severity of this and how challenging those moments must have been for the pilot, for the flight crew? >> a lot of contained engine failures. there was one in europe a few days ago but they don't destroy the engine like this. so it was a very, very catastrophic event. very serious, could have been much worse because when an engine like this comes apart, of course, there are pieces that could pierce the fuel tank. i worked at cases in the past where the hydraulic lines and damaged other parts of the plane and other cases, the debris even came into the aircraft. so they're lucky that didn't happen. so it's terribly serious event and it is difficult to fly. trained in flight school. i only had an engine out, single engine and it is a very scary event. it's hard to do it. you get one shot at landing. can't go again with just one engine, but there's the important thing to note and briefings said this. to leave the parts where they are because some of the cases are similar to this, the ntsb prepares a grid. they want to know what part fell where because they're going to piece together what happened with this engine. was this a flaw, for example in the combustion line of this jet engine, why is the fuel and the high temperatures inside and what came off first and next, et cetera. the other reason they don't want people to touch it is because as the engine comes apart. there's a lot of hazmat fluid and jet fuel, hydraulic fluid. they don't want to touch that or want their children to touch it. the ntsb needs to know where they fell and in the condition in which they fell. >> you're also an experienced pi pilot. one of the things we talked about an hour ago, you're trained to lose an engine but if that starts to fall or feel parts of your engine falling off of your plane, to then have to basically counteract and deal with a new set of physics as you're trying to safely land this aircraft. >> not just the physics, erica but the sheer startle but a moment to realize exactly what is happening and then to start running through the procedures and lost the engine, now we need to make sure the engine is completely shut down so it doesn't cause more damage and then the airplane is now flying completely differently. the analogy i like to lean into here, if you've ever been on a row boat or canoe or kayak or kept one out of the water, the boat will want to veer very severely into the side of the paddle that's dead. that's exactly what happens in a twin engine airplane like the boeing 777 here and it creates a very big challenge for the flight crew. in some cases, it can be particularly hard to control an airplane on one engine. not only have you lost 50% of the available performance of the airplane, and two engines, so lost 50% of the power but in some cases, the airplane essentially has to fly sideways, you lose even more possible performance at your disposal to try to climb the airplane, usually that doesn't happen easily. and it's definitely much harder to turn so to get this airplane off the ground. this was just after takeoff, typically a high and not to mention just the scary part of trying to sort of figure this out. is really, i mean, hats off to the crew and here, you have to, the flight attendants and the air traffic controllers because there's a lot of coordination that takes place, especially in a high pressure scenario like this to make sure this goes off without a hitch. and seeing photos and video of this plane landing successfully and the crew applauding, sorry, the passengers applauding. what a relief. especially, think about if you were in the back. if you were in a row, the right-wing. the engine. think about the sheer scary image of having to experience someone flying on board. it's incredible what has taken place here, not only from the flying part but also the fact this even happened. really remarkable. >> you're absolutely right. and to your point, the coordination, the discussions with air traffic control. stay with us, everyone. we're actually going to hear the may day call from the pilot. that is just ahead. you're live in the cnn newsroom. 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you're just joining us, we are following breaking news out of the denver, colorado, area and we now have audio of the moment that united airlines pilot issued a may day call with air traffic control after experiencing engine failure shortly after takeoff from denver international airport earlier today. take a listen. >> may day, may day. united 328. heavy may day, may day aircraft. departure united 328. heavy may day aircraft, just experienced engine failure. need a turn immediately. >> heavy engine failure. need to return immediately. pete muntean is with us, aviation correspondent. the calm in the pilot's voice, i think, put everybody at ease who's watching right now. he's training for just about any scenario, but still, this is incredible something. >> even the newest pilots, really from the outset of the training, start by working through how to fly an airplane or no engines. hard to replicate and you hear the calm in the radio call of this flight crew that really speaks to their professionalism. they were prepared for this. they were ready for this. but even the air traffic controller said, excuse me, because this is something that does not occur very often in aviation. i was just looking at some of the flight radar tracks of this flight, that made it up to only 13,000 feet. we know from the faa, this occurred right after takeoff and the crew you heard there asked for an immediate turn back to the airport. so this is something that's very, very severe. i mean, the fact that you're seeing these images of the airplane, the right engine according to the faa, essentially just blew up and rained debris down in yards of homes near in broomfield, colorado, you could see the circular piece in front of the rv there. that's what looks to be part of the exterior structure of the right engine and it speaks to the force of what happened here. neighbors heard a loud boom, reported hearing a loud boom. so for an uncontained engine failure like this is incredibly rare. but this one, apparently, incredibly forceful and you hear even in spite of the fact that there was a boom and an explosion, these pilots sprang into action. knew what they could do and got on the ground safely. i just heard from united airlines, 231 people on board, including ten crew. what a miracle it is to bring this airplane back, to fly on one engine is something flight crews train for and drill for all the time in simulator training and beyond that. so to experience this, to be confronted with this is not something they're unprepared for, but to this degree, wow. that is not necessarily something that you can prepare for. >> yeah. i keep thinking back to and perhaps because i was covering at the time but the miracle on the hudson and as everybody was watching that and we know that was the result of birds, but do we have any more information on what may have caused the engine failure because as you point out, it happened quickly after takeoff. >> not necessarily. we'll find out soon enough and the good news, in a way here, the silver lining, there's so much forensic evidence that the ntsb and the faa can pore through. you heard the chief of the broomfield department say, do not touch this. not only is a danger to you because there could be contaminants, fluids, fuel, et cetera in the area, but it is something that is so key to this investigation. so this is something that the ntsb will really hone in on, just the fact that there is all of this across this town and then some, to be able to say, they will be able to say the engine failure occurred exactly at this point and be able to look at the prevailing winds at the time. all the other conditions to say, we know when it occurred and why the debris went here and there. even the placement, the physical placement of this geographically will be clues to these investigators to make it so that they can really, truly piece this together by all of the pieces that are on the ground. >> and speaking of all the pieces, i have to say one thing that stood out from this press briefing, a spokeswoman saying they have been using an unprecedented amount of crime scene tape to keep these debris fields contained. which just gives you a sense of how large it is and they're not even sure how large the debris field is because that's one of the things they're still piecing together. pete, stay with us. we'll have much more on the breaking news. we are learning more about the debris that fell in these neighborhoods and you're seeing in broomfield, just outside of denver, colorado. that is on the other side of this break. don't go far. ♪ beds get sick too protection. lysol laundry sanitizer kills 99.9% of illness-causing bacteria detergents leave behind. proven to kill covid-19 want to save hundreds on your wireless bill? with xfinity mobile you can. how about saving hundreds on the new samsung galaxy s21 ultra 5g? you can do that too. all on the most reliable network. sure thing! and with fast nationwide 5g included at no extra cost. we've got you covered. so join the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction. and get a new samsung galaxy starting at $17 a month. learn more at xfinitymobile.com or visit your local xfinity store today. just about half past the hour. breaking news out of the denver, colorado area. united airlines flight losing control of its right engine shortly after takeoff from denver international airport. we could tell you, everyone who was on board that plane. 241 people is safe. the plane though, on its way back to the airport, dropping massive chunks of debris and some of it, you can see in these images from our affiliate, kmgh. hard to see here but stay on the shot. you can see behind the trees a large circular object in front of the house on the right-hand side of your screen. massive part of an engine. you see a picture from the ground of that piece of debris, in front of that same house. we also now have the audio of the moment that the pilot of united airlines flight 328 issued a may day call. take a listen. >> may day, may day, united 328, heavy may day aircraft. >> again? >> denver, departure heavy mayday aircraft. just experienced engine failure. need to return immediately. >> engine failure. heavy mayday. need to turn immediately. mary schiavo, as you listen to the mayday call from the pilot, so calm, i have to say. what's your reaction? >> what you and the other commenter have said. totally in command and in control and it's amazing how many times i've had to listen to cvrs in my work over the years and pilots are like that. they're trained to do that, fly their aircraft even in the worst situations and remain in control and calm. and the mayday, of course, is an important signal. it lets air traffic controllers know they have to clear the airspace, do everything that this aircraft needs and it's clear they did that. there have been cases in the past where, and it wasn't with u.s. carriers but carriers in trouble had to use tright language and there wasn't such a good result in those cases but here, they got what they needed. the air traffic control accommodated them. got all the clearances back to the airport. and just very fortunate it ended as it did. because when an engine falls apart like this, and video circulating on the internet from inside the cabin and the engine was, i hate to say on fire, it was still burning fuel, let's put it that way. that's what the jet engine is supposed to do but it's supposed to be contained within the combustion liner. you could see that the engine continued to burn the fuel, undoubtedly discharge what they call the fire bottles and equipment to put out the flames, but it could have been a much worse result. especially if any of this debris had pierced the fuel tank in the wings or the cabin, so good things all the way around and that communication is exactly what they were supposed to do. >> as we look at, you're on the phone with us right now, we show pictures from our affiliates, the debris on the ground here, roped off in that crime scene tape. a pilot for folks at home, former inspector general for the department of transportation, these are all, these debris fields, right, not only need to be contained because for safety's sake but also, this is an important part of the investigation. the ntsb team has been dispatched, we were told, by local police. what will that first order of business be for the team when they arrive on scene? what will they work on today, especially before nightfall? >> before they even get on the ground there, they're doing something very important and collecting all the information about this engine who was the manufacturer, is it ge or pratton on whitney, the two most likely engines or any similar engines? any flaws, for example, in manufacturing. was there a flaw in the metallurgy or a problem that's been developing? they look for trend analysis. they will also be collecting, they're already doing this, collecting all of the maintenance records, they're all electronic now. when did this engine with maintenance, where did they work on it and the last time it had a heavy overhaul, are there any new parts? they're going to draw heavily on their trend analysis and maintenance records to see and they're already doing that. they don't even have to get on the ground to do that and once they're on the ground, how in the order of which this fell will give them a clue, they hope as to what happened first and i've worked cases in the past where the clue as to what went wrong was contained in a piece as tiny as a thumbnail, for example. so that's why the officials don't want people to remove anything, but again, this is a modern plane and the plane has already, the flight data recorder, that information from the engine as to what was going wrong and many, many parameters recorded as to what happened on this engine. the investigators will have a lot of clues. >> already, as you pointed out, at work, really, as always. breaking news if you're just joining us, a united airlines flight, losing control of its right engine shortly after takeoff from denver international airport. this happened just a couple of hours ago, debris massive in size in some areas, other small falling on neighborhoods outside of denver. the very latest after this short break. good morning, mr. sun. good morning, blair. 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>> it does change a lot. the ntsb is really not traveling to many aircraft accidents right now because of the pandemic. so the fact that they are going to this really shows how significant this incident really is and you know the investigators are going to zero in on a few things. it's so obvious this was a problem with the engine and you talk about an engine failure. there's two different types. there's a contained engine failure, which is parts of the engine don't exit the actual structure around it called the nacelle or the cowling. this would be referred to as an uncontained engine failure. so we see this debris field of parts, kevlar composite metal, aluminum across broomfield, colorado and this is all going to be really key to investigators for them to be able to literally piece this back together and say exactly what went wrong here. uncontained failures of a jet engine are very, very rare but when they happen, they happen in a big way, though typically not as big as this. you could see the force of that boom that neighbors heard on the ground. knocked loose huge parts of the engine, that's the front of the engine cowling or nacelle, the very front of the very fast and very hot parts of the turbine jet engine and when that does happen, that creates a very big problem for the flight crew. not only would they have to deal with tamping down their emotions of having just the sheer startle factor of hearing that, but having to run through the procedures they drill for over and under again. though typically not confronted in a professional flying environment with uncontained engine failure as this. this is very rare, a hard situation to deal with. you have to keep your wits about you and you have to be able to continue to fly the airplane straight. i'm a flight instructor. flown multiengine planes before, nothing big as this, but when you lose configuration, it makes the airplane essentially want to fly off to the side. fly a little sideways. like dragging a boat or on a row boat. it's really hard to turn against the direction of the dead oar. so the ntsb has their work cut out for them. the work that was really, really good here was that by the flight crew and the air traffic controllers and the flight attendants, all who had to work together to make this happen. >> pete -- >> go ahead. >> i'm going to ask because i'm fascinated by, to your work, the incredible work of the pilot, the flight crew, the folks on the ground at air traffic control but as you point out, when that engine goes, you're trained as a pilot, if you're flying a twin engine plane like this, how to handle it, that being said, how is it different when it's a contained versus uncontained, as you point out, engine failure here? it's not just the plane might start to tilt a little bit as you were pointing out but are there things that happen from a mechanical level as well, things that kick in or don't when that happens. >> i've reported on things like this in the past. locally here in the dc area, flight taking off from dulles had what's called a compressor stall, produces a similar instance like this where it's a loud boom and a big backfire from the engine. although it didn't blow parts off of it like this, but the force of that is enough to really, if you were in the back, if you were a passenger, knock the coffee out of your cup. it is not something that is gentle in the least. it can be pretty violent. so it would be pretty obvious to the flight crew that something happened here. exactly what, they have to run through that. the possible scenarios. and when they finally do come to the realization that it's uncontained engine fillailure, s hard. not only make sure it's operating, starve of fuel and then continue to fly the airplane. one of the things you realize running through this rote procedure, a flow checklist something the airlines drove their pilots on to make sure they can do this right away, that it is something that's almost automatic. although when you're confronted with the real thing, it can be a bit harder to do. professional pilots for it all the time but the fact the airplane flies so differently, it makes it really hard to turn back to the airport. you hear the atc audio earlier, the air traffic control audio. the flight crew sounds relatively calm, although things sound a bit more tense than usual and they say mayday mayday, heavy, a large triple engine like this, uncontained, we need to return back to the airport. immediate return. so they knew there was a problem and needed to get this airplane on the ground right now. >> and they did, and they did, right? 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anything popping out of a roof or in a car? >> nothing popping out of a roof or car. but i can tell you when we were parking the car i took a minute to take out the phone and the neighbor said there is a piece of debris next to you. it's literally everywhere you look there are the smaller pieces. also on the sock reporter field as we drove by. there was something very, very large, a large piece of white metal. i don't know what part of the airplane that was. but it's definitely all around. and this is a very freshly created scene. so a lot of things may be on the ground that haven't been marked off by the police tape yet. >> yeah, to your point, that extensive debris field, an unprecedented amount of a crime scene tie tape as you point out. the broomfield pomds telling us they haven't heard from other jurisdictions and towns but as lucy pointed out on the ground we don't know the sides or extent of the deshfield. that's one of the things obviously they're going to be piecing together in the later hours throughout the day. the ntsb now opening an official investigation as we know. again, just to recap for you, flight 328, denver to honolulu did not make it far wush e, turning around because the right engine failure, returning to denver international airport. all 241 souls onboard deplaining no injuries. no injuries on the ground. although a massive debrisfield. our coverage on this kins with my colleague pamela brown. stay with us. fine, no one leaves the table until your finished. fine, we'll sleep here. ♪ it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest. kraft. for the win win. so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? 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