On 28 December 1978, the crew of United Airlines Flight 173 are preoccupied with a landing gear problem as the aircraft circles in a holding pattern in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon. It runs out of fuel and crashes in a sparsely populated area, killing 10 of the 189 people on board. The pilot failed to acknowledge the warnings of the remaining crew regarding the aircraft's fuel state, while the remaining crew failed to adequately communicate the situation.