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Alaska Airlines flight diverted after blown tire

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This afternoon an Alaska Airlines plane was diverted to Honolulu for an emergency landing. (www.khon2.com) More...

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sparkie624
sparkie624 3
There is nothing wrong with them continuing. Once they are off they ground they do not need the gear anyway. They probably diverted in to PHNL because they have maintenance there with parts and could get it fixed quicker then continue to their destination. It would be normal procedures for an airliner to declare an emergency with a known blown tire. I have had it before myself.

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.
onceastudentpilot
tim mitchell 2
makes sense
bovineone
Jeff Lawson 2
Alaska Airlines 843 -- http://flightaware.com/live/flight/ASA843/history/20130521/1710Z/KSEA/PHNL
Av8nut
Michael Fuquay 1
Why did they continue the flight, if it happened on takeoff? Too heavy to turn around?
randomguy
randomguy 1
What's the difference between landing on a bum tire in seattle and landing on a bum tire in honolulu?
sparkie624
sparkie624 1
Overweight with Fuel probably... Again, planes do not need wheels to fly once airborne. He had to burn fuel off, why hold over SEA while he burns off fuel. They may not have maintenance in SEA, but they do in HNL. If they had come back to SEA they would have had to send in company maintenance to fix the plane while it is stuck on the runway and being closed.... Continue flight, and make an Emergency Landing. have maintenance ready to change the Blown wheel and its mating wheel on the runway, then taxi it to the gate.

The one that I worked (Maintenance Control), we knew about 5 minutes after take off. We had the station setup with parts, tooling, escort all staged over an hour before the plane landed... Minimize repair time, runway closures (busy airports hate closing a runway). We had the runway fowled for not more than 30 minutes and that was with unloading the Passengers. The plane almost been the passengers on the bus to the terminal :)
onceastudentpilot
tim mitchell 1
random questions.....what about the extra stress on the hubs? do you all just change the whole assembly?
sparkie624
sparkie624 2
Once they land on the flat, the hub is toast... It will never fly again, but will join many other pieces of scrap. Just think the pilot might actually drink a coke that was quite literally the hub of the flat he just landed on. All jokes aside, the bearings probably survived, the rest of the wheel assembly is nothing more than scrap metal... Those wheel hubs are nothing more than an Aluminum Alloy. Without the protection of the rubber, the metal will not survive a concrete runway and be able to be useable ever again.
sparkie624
sparkie624 1
Correction to above statement: " and be able to be useable ever again" should be
" and NOT be able to be useable ever again". Sorry... The NOT changes the entire meaning. Sorry guys.
preacher1
preacher1 1
You can take it either way. your "NOT" after metal covers them both.
sparkie624
sparkie624 1
Why return... Continue to destination.. Not like a car... doesn't need wheels to fly.
davysims
David Sims 1
Probably occured after V1, the go/no go decision speed. After that point there is probably not sufficient room to stop, and its safer to get it in the air then deal with the problem.
sparkie624
sparkie624 1
They probably never new it until they were told by ATC or Maintenance. When I told the crew he blew a main, his answer was "Are you sure, everything felt normal?". Message via ACARS "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Communications_Addressing_and_Reporting_System"
preacher1
preacher1 1
The abbreviation is much simpler.LOL
sparkie624
sparkie624 1
But not as descriptive.
onceastudentpilot
tim mitchell 0
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.
sparkie624
sparkie624 0
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.
onceastudentpilot
tim mitchell 1
makes sense to me, them not being able to hear it, but someone would have heard or saw something.
sparkie624
sparkie624 1
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.
rtjorgenson
Ryan Jorgenson 1
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.

sparkie624
sparkie624 1
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.
onceastudentpilot
tim mitchell 1
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
sparkie624
sparkie624 2
I doubt it was flat spotted... Being on departure it is more of a chance that he hit some FOD.

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