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Alaska Airlines flight diverted after blown tire
This afternoon an Alaska Airlines plane was diverted to Honolulu for an emergency landing. (www.khon2.com) More...now that's what I call keeping a schedule.....(bang)...what was that; it sounded like a tire just blew....screw it we're going; I am going to Hawaii one way or the other and some tire ain't gonna keep me from my layover.
I hope you do not really think that they heard the "BANG". They probably never new until they were Airborne. Read my above comments and it may give a better explanation of what happened. Chances are the crew asked maintenance if they want them to continue, or Return or origin, or divert to a more convenient airport. It would appear that maintenance chose the convenient airport as it makes much more since.
makes sense to me, them not being able to hear it, but someone would have heard or saw something.
Chances are the Tower saw something from the a/c, or maybe a taxing a/c and reported it.... it does not take long to get down the runway. Most tire burst happen at high speeds, very few blow during taxi or start of take off phase of flight. Even if the tower saw something, the contents would need to be verified before reporting. With that in mind the speed at which it would blow and rotation is very close to each other, and may have happened at rotation because when the nose comes off the ground the CG will shift the weight to the mains causing even more stress. Already being HOT the tire goes....
Once I was flying in the rear section of a plane and saw a tire burst. Being an Airline part 121 mechanic for the company I wrote a note to the captain, sending it to the cockpit via the FA advising him of which tire burst with my ID to validate myself. Captain again never new he had a blow tire until well after being off the ground.
Once I was flying in the rear section of a plane and saw a tire burst. Being an Airline part 121 mechanic for the company I wrote a note to the captain, sending it to the cockpit via the FA advising him of which tire burst with my ID to validate myself. Captain again never new he had a blow tire until well after being off the ground.
Thanks for your insight, Sparkie. Tire 'bursts' probably aren't all that uncommon--in fact, a similar incident was part of the chain of events leading to the Air France Concorde crash, where a sharp object that fell off a different airplane caused Concorde's tire to burst.
Airports make a point of sweeping up foreign objects and debris (FOD) from runways and taxiways, to prevent situations like this.
Airports make a point of sweeping up foreign objects and debris (FOD) from runways and taxiways, to prevent situations like this.
We do not have them every day, but we have at least one every other month... Almost all on on landing, very few on departure. I have only seen 2 on departure in 4 years. Departure blowouts are usually a result of FOD.
for all we know it could have been a flat spotted tire or a tire that should have been properly repaired or replaced....cords flex; you can only re-inflate a tire so many times before it just blows
I doubt it was flat spotted... Being on departure it is more of a chance that he hit some FOD.
They probably never knew they blew the tire until they were in the air, and parts of the tire were found and reported to the tower who forwarded it on to the company. I had one just this way with a CRJ-900. ATC called me (maintenance control) and advised us that we had a blow out on one of our planes flight number ****. I notifed the a/c and dispatch and I contacted the plane, he continued to his destination (where we already had maintenance in the first place). He declared and emergency and made a perfectly safe landing.
Not sure why this is news.... Must be very slow news today.