The multi failure of some of the brakes during the rejected take off was rotten luck for all those involved. Most landings in airline aircraft do not involve maximum brake application and thus the defects present at the time of the VC 10 accident would not have been apparent. In fact it is quite possible to go from servicing schedule to servicing schedule without ever realising one or two of a multiple wheel/brake system may be dodgy. Unless of course a high speed abort on a limiting runway just happens to occur - and then it is too late.
For example it happened to this writer many years ago; fortunately it was a happy ending:
I recall taking over a 737-200 of Air Nauru that had flown from Hong Kong – Manila – Guam. There was a crew change at Guam for sector Guam – Ponape – Nauru. During the walk around at Guam after the previous crew had left the aircraft for the pub, I noticed one of the four brake units appeared cold compared to the other three. The others were hardly warm as expected for a 10,000 ft runway so I thought little about it.
Ponape runway was relatively short. Landing and braking nothing unusual. Refuelled and did another walk around and again found one brake cold while the others were still warm. Pondered this although warm air from adjacent brake made it difficult to assess a possible problem. . Landing at Nauru I decided to use moderate braking and from experience knew that on arrival at the terminal the brakes would normally be quite hot since Nauru was a short runway. After pax disembarked I checked the brakes by waving my hand near them and discovered same single brake stone cold.
Wrote up the snag and engineer discovered that brake had been disconnected from the brake system. Must have happened during servicing at Hong Kong but not picked up by previous crew. Shows how important the walk around inspection is providing it is done with diligence. The danger was if a high speed abort was necessary when only three brakes would have worked.