Tire failure during takeoff roll

[B737SFP]

Hi everyone...

Let's say you believe you had a tire failure during takeoff roll (speed above 80kts), would you retract the landing gear or not ?

Boeing says that you can proceed to your destination, as long as other parts of the aircraft weren't damaged (engine,flaps, wing, hydraulics etc etc). That would give you plenty of time to access the damage, reduce your weight and prepare for a landing on a flat tire

Anyway, there are tons of reports around the web of cases when a loose tire didn't hit the frangible fitting and end up hitting a hydraulic line and other vital systems inside the wheel well...

So, is it a bad idea to just let the gear down, ask for a hold, access the damage, brief the landing on a flat tire procedure and land at your departure airport ?

Let's assume both runways have the same length, ok ?

Any kind of studying material will be much appreciated

Cheers,

:ok:

[Capt Scribble]

Had one in a 321 on take off but did not notice until taxiing off after landing at dest. Several holes in the airframe though.

[CaptainMongo]

Capt Scribble, I am a 319/320 pilot.

If I may pick your brain: You didn't feel are hear anything during the TO roll? I had read reports where it sounded like a bomb going off with a shudder but very little yaw. Thus my inclination that if I had something like during the T/O roll without yaw, I would continue the take off. (A severe yaw indicates a thrust problem, thus an abort if below V1) So you had nothing to indicate a problem, eh?

(As an aside we did have one of our Bus' take off from KORD and left the nose wheels in the off field grass (slight Maint screw up) and didn't find out until landing at KDCA, but that is another story - as Gomer Pyle would say "Suprise, Suprise, Suprise"....)

[B737SFP]

Ok... So here's the thing:

We had one yesterday !

Just a little vibration felt by the captain during the initial takeoff roll. He said that felt something strange, but nothing more than that. The flight was pretty short <60min and we continued to destination as we didn't know that anything was wrong.

On first contact with maintenance, he asked us if we felt anything strange during landing roll or taxi in... We said we felt nothing and asked why he was asking. He then told us that one of the tires had failed (tire sidewall rupture).

Searching for similar events on web, I found that that retreading + fast taxi speeds and other operational conditions (ie low tire pressure) usually are the culprit to this kind of event.

Later I discussed with the captain the possibility of not raising the gear in such situation... He promptly rejected, saying that doing so would invalidate the 2nd TO segment.

If I'm the captain, I would definitely think twice before retracting the landing gear...

What you guys think ?

[SAB]

Aviation is not set in stones and is not always black or white.

Are you departing out of an airport with high terrain surrounding you like Salzburg? I would definitely be taking the gear up. Is it out of an airport with no terrain? Then you could consider to leave it out, but if you do leave it out, you probably wont have fuel to reach your destination - as the 737 FCTM suggest you should/could continue to in order to plan ahead and reduce weight - and thereby already limiting your options.

Weather wise, VMC vs IMC and other things springs also to mind - but generally I would take the gear up as FCTM suggest, only time where I would consider not to do it is with an indication of wheel well fire and keep the gear out.

[Capt Scribble]

CM. The tyre became deflated at some time during the departure. Its not something that you are looking/listening for. Given that you do not really hear the true noise of the engines, you are unlikely to hear a tyre go; you might notice something in the handling, but I did not notice anything even in the landing.

[tomuchwork]

@B737SFP

Well. Don't like the argumentation. If you suspect tire damage I would never retract the gear. 2nd segment is an argumentation if you have an engine failure(which you should be aware at that moment I guess).

Other considerations? Well - some airport require a high climb gradient for the SID, there I would check with ATC if you could divert from dep route, get radar vectors or climb in a holding over the field. So many options. Retracting a damaged gear (or suspected damaged one) is never a really good idea.
Of course that's just my humble opinion and this one of some airlines I worked with.


@SAB Well, SAlzburg might be tricky if you depart in southerly direction only. And then it is not really climb limited, it is turn limited till on head(track?) 340 or so. It is more or less a protection if you loose one engine during TO and then would not bank at least 25° or more then 160kts/165kts(if I remember right). Not really a big issue with climb gradient heading out north, over the german "flatlands" ^^(right guess, I am Austrian).

Even Innsbruck is no big deal with 2 engines(or more). Climb your way out to Rattenberg(RTT) via the Inn Valley. SE is a different story, especially if departing West. In this case you have to go direction Telfs(normally the SE procedure) and turn around there, go back to the field and head out to RTT. No rocket science. Just planning. But keep that gear out. ;-)

Some tricky airport would be only Sion(and I don't think so many airliners going into that. Out of there you really need a high rate of climb. There you could consider a gear up, I still would go for the SE escape route turning out right into the valley for lake Geneva. You don't know whats wrong with that gear or tire and you don't want that really retracted. Chances are that you never get it out again or even worse, it is on fire and burns up your shiny airplane. Even in Kathmandu I would go for the SE procedure, do the holding over the field and slowly(an aircraft with 2 healthy engines climbs beautifully, even with the gear out) make your way out of there. Or even better, re-land if the runway is long enough.

[FE Hoppy]

Had one on take off from Ascension island on an l1011. We didn't notice anything in the cockpit.
Landed 8 hours later at MPA and noticed a brake temp was 0 and had a bogie tilt light on landing.
Quick look outside shows a bit of rubber around one of the rims where a tyre used to be.

literally no effect on our operation but a bit of a delay on the next flight. No damage to the airframe.

[B737SFP]

Hi guys...

Thank you very much for the opinions !

@tomuchwork: looks like our thoughts are pretty much aligned. I do agree with everything you said.

All the best, fellas...

[LeadSled]

Folks,
I have had a few tyre failures over the years, with one exception, there are two common matters, we didn't know we had had a tyre failure, and we didn't have any indication of some time quite serious airframe damage until after landing.
Aircraft were variously, B707-300, B707-320, B767, B747 Classic and -400.
What you do is a command decision, if I thought I had serious U/C damage I would not be retracting the gear, unless terrain (or something else) was a greater danger.
The exception was a tyre/wheel failure on pushback at Dubai, we knew we had a problem when the remains of a tyre rolled past the cockpit.
Tootle pip!!