Emergency Landing - low tire pressure.

[Niner Lima Charlie]

NEW DELHI: A Delhi-bound Air India flight made an emergency landing at the Indira Gandhi International Airport after the commander reported low pressure in one of the aircraft's tires, sources said.

All 325 passengers are safe, an Air India official said.

The AI flight AI 102 from New York's JFK airport landed seven minutes ahead of the scheduled time of 2:50 pm, the airlines official said.

It was a "precautionary" landing, the official said, adding that the commander of the Boeing 777-300ER plane asked for landing ahead of the scheduled time after he detected low pressure in one of the tires.

Source: NDTV.com: Latest News, India News, Business, Cricket, Bollywood, Video & Breaking News (http://www.ndtv.com)

[barit1]

If I were one of the flights landing after this triple, I'd be p.o'd if he couldn't clear the d... runway. Is this the first time a low tire pressure forced an emergency? :}

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Never heard of it before. From whom did he seek permission to land 7 minutes early?

[DaveReidUK]

So the flight made a "precautionary" landing at its intended destination ?

Hmmmm.

[Basil]

Hope they changed both on the same axle ;)

[matkat]

Basil, if it was as reported it would be standard procedure to change both.

[Chris Scott]

A somewhat tiresome decision? Sorry, I've got my coat...

[ACMS]

Been there done that and got the tee shirt.

Advised ATC and did the smoothest landing I could with no braking on that side,,,,,no issue.

After parking the brakes and wheels on that side were cold.....

No need to declare an emergency, that's a bit of an over kill.:cool:

[FlightlessParrot]

No need to declare an emergency, that's a bit of an over kill.

"Emergency" is a word in the media report. Officials are quoted as calling it "precautionary": perhaps had some equipment ready in case of wheel fire? Would seem cautious but reasonable?

Press misuses technical term to boost saliency of incident. World continues to turn on axis.

[stilton]

Sounds quite scary, hope the remaining 13 tires were up to the job.

[WingNut60]

Call me a cynic if you will, but how many of you have little devils running around in your mind right now asking whether this "precautionary" might just have been declared in order to get a better slot?


In what way would a seven minute queue jump have been of assistance in this case?

[ETOPS]

I can beat that .... Had a flat with a 744 and was faced with the dreaded 17 wheel landing :eek:

[ExSp33db1rd]

If he knew he had a low pressure tyre - and does the 777 keep track of tyre pressures on all the electronic gizmos, presume it does or how else would he know ? - and had said nothing, and then had a tyre burst, wheel fire maybe, on landing, he would have been soundly criticised for not requesting emergency services standing by, so no problem advising of a potential problem, but priority landing ? That does seem a bit over the top, unless of course the pressure monitoring had indicated that after another few minutes there would be no air left in that tyre, so better to land on a "soft " tyre instead of an "empty" one. Maybe.

[ACMS]

I landed on a completely flat tire on the 77W with no problems at all as I said.
Did I request priority? No
Did I discuss the situation and possible outcomes with ATC and Ops Eng on the Sat phone? Yes
We were well prepared, but I didn't see the necessity to declare any emergency, request priority or indeed tell the pax.

Anyway knowing India's love of red tape he'll be filling out paperwork for weeks......j:D.

[mightyauster]

The B777 Tyre Pressure Monitoring Unit is a pretty good piece of kit. It will generate a Status Message for the flight crew and also trigger a warning on Boeing's AHM (Airplane Health Monitoring) for the maintenance watch fellas on the ground with one of the following conditions:

* Tyre pressure below 100 psi
* Main gear tyre pressure different from average tyre pressure
by 18 percent (the TPMU calculates average tyre pressure by
discarding the three highest and the three lowest tyre
pressures and averaging the middle six tyre pressures)
* More than 25 percent difference in pressure between main
gear tires on the same axle
* More than 12 percent difference between the nose gear tyre
pressures.

There has been an issue with the wheel hubs cracking through the tie bolt holes, due to the tie bolts being "biffed" through the hubs if they are slightly misaligned during assembly, causing a stress raiser on the hub. Typically, the tyre deflates through the crack at around 10 PSI an hour, triggering the status message sometime before landing. Yes, the fire trucks have been on standby as a precaution, but on each occasion, the aircraft has landed safely.

[Basil]

Ref my 'both on same axle'; flying for a ME airline, when we shut down in Khartoum, it was noted that one mainwheel was deflated.
There was only one spare on station and even that was out of date.
So - what to do?
We fitted the spare and went back to base where the job was properly completed.

Was the tyre deflated before we landed? No idea - certainly didn't notice anything landing or taxying.