airclues
yes, that was my point. eal 747 indicated a winter event where the temps might have been freezing all the way to the ground.
today's event was clearly well above freezing at 18 c. my speculation is a bad part, faulty mx, or even an odd strike of something during takeoff.
as to foaming the runway, I tend to agree with the chap who foamed for another md80 incident. kudos also for buying beer for the brigade boys.
FWIW, at least in the USA, some 20 years ago foaming became something of the past for civilians, 15 years ago for military. And yes, if you foamed today, you would have to wait for the fire engines (fire trucks, equipment) to make sufficient foam for the post crash use...and while waiting, the foam on the runway would dissapate a bit...15 minutes seems the max useful time of foam. I too agree that directional control would not have suffered had there been foam on the runway.
My personal feeling is tht foaming the runway was popular with SAC to avoid problems with nukes. ;-)
Having covered things like this, I recall the press release for a CAL express embraer at houston with a gear problem. Press release said RUNWAYS WAS FOAMED> Pictures indicated otherwise. A call to a knowlegable person proved that the fire crew had HOSED off the runway where the tire (tyre) had burst (to remove debris, to allow continued runway ops)...the plane landed on different runway.