Virgin nose wheel incident
 

Virgin 737-700 lost a nose wheel this morning in Melbourne prior to take off.

I had one of those but *** ***** **** ***

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wow.. Detailed...:ugh:

The wheels are falling off at VB, literally.:eek:

86'er

Sources indicate VH-VBA was involved in the incident.Major damage to nose gear(axle collapse),lucky the A/C had not taken off .Reports indicated that the safety car picked up the wheel on the runway.Good work it seems by the pilots concerned.Info coming thru slowly any other input would be appreciated.IE what phase of takeoff the A/C was at.How many pax were onboard and destination.

Yes good work....for not continuing after losing a nose wheel!! he he he

sorry lame, but not a thing in the media about it, so it can't be true:ok:

If it was Qantas it would have been front page.

If it had been Mrats, it might have been reported 6 months later after the crew was sacked, er I mean resigned:E

Heard 3AW this morning with the report that had been posted on their rumour file
I can confirm via talking with crews that a wheel axle separated whilst on taxi just short of the runway, it was noticed by another crew following nearby. The aircraft was then taxied back to the gate (at this point I'm wondering whether an engineer inspected it first before they made that decision, sounds dangerous and problematic to me). It is believed that corrosion was the cause but the CASA / ATSB investigation should pin point this.

It is now

Virgin Blue disaster avoided after front wheel falls off plane | Herald Sun

Sarah Wotherspoon

July 27, 2009 10:22am

THE aircraft engineers union has demanded tougher safety checks after the front wheel reportedly fell off a Virgin Blue plane.
A potential disaster was avoided after pilots on the tarmac alerted the Virgin pilot that one of the front wheels had fallen off and told him to take the plane back to the terminal.

The plane was about to take off from Melbourne airport about 8am on Saturday.

Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association national secretary Steve Purvinas told 3AW corrosion was thought to have caused the wheel to come loose.

“What occurred is not a case of a wheel nut to being done up properly,” he said.

“There was some corrosion in the axel which has led to the release of the wheel.”

Mr Purvinas said the plane may have crashed if the pilot had attempted to take off or disaster could have struck when the plane went to land.

“If the aircraft had tried to take off and the corrosion was on both sides the nose of the aircraft, the landing gear, would have dug into the runway and who knows what could have happened,” he said.

“Similarly on landing if the axel had collapsed there, it certainly could have been disastrous.”

Virgin Blue did not return calls from the Herald Sun yesterday regarding the incident.

Small item in The Age at 10:29AM

Virgin Blue plane's wheel 'fell off' before take-off

Congratulations Sarah Wotherspoon and herald scum editors fail basic spelling.

Another piece of outstanding aviation journalism. Where do they get these journos??

Sure lucky there were some sensible pilots down there on the tarmac to tell the poor Virgin dude to go back to the termnal otherwise he may have thought taking off with one nosewheel was okay.:rolleyes:

That pesky corrosion eh. Lets hope the wings are free of it.

Do you guys get paid extra for that and do you have to provide your own chairs?
I'm surprised you have time to sit around on the tarmac!
:rolleyes:

Are 737 nose landing gears engineered to do a takeoff run on one wheel, not to mention a landing?

Do spotters in the control tower look for missing wheels on approaching aircraft?

Just curious.

Could there have been a potential major disaster if the aircraft had attempted a take off or landing with one nose wheel missing? Surely the load on the front of the aircraft would be quiet different on one side, combined with the speed.

Not sure, but I do know that engineers would be looking for defects during the pushback.

Oh, hang on a sec. That's right. I forgot.
Virgin Blue uses baggage handlers to push back aircraft in Melbourne!

Tickle

The guys in the tower certainly did notice the nose wheel still up when Ansett's first try at an international flight from Sydney ended up as a wheels-up at KSA on return due to an engine failure in the B747.

They called the aircraft and advised them their nose wheel was not down just as it landed and was committed. Very embarrassing.

The fireies used to have a picture of it on the wall of their station in KSA.
:\

From aap:
Finally somebody is calling for pre-flight inspections of aircraft. That advice 100 years ago would have probably saved us from all those pesky deaths.

FRQ CB

PS Not a dig at Mr Purvinas but the writing.

So who does preflt inspections on VBA aircraft ?

Pilots, engineers or baggage handlers ?

If it was a corroded axle, who would be most qualified to pick it up before the aircraft left the gate, the pilot, an engineer or a baggage handler?

Seems to me that with a 30 to 45 min turnaround, a pilot would have lots of pilot stuff to do, and a baggage handler would have lots of baggage handling stuff to do.

Preflt takes a good 10 to 15 mins including refuelling.

I think Mr P of the ALAEA has a very good point

How long ago did this AC have a D check, and are you kidding me that there is no walk around on Virgin aircraft, you must be.

Was an inspection conducted before the aircraft subsequently moved or the taxi back, lucky the other nosewheel did not come adrift????:eek:

86'er

You ask the question....Who does inspections on turn arounds? engineers and/or pilots.....depends on the flight/port. (edto or not/ outport or not) I can tell you however I personally have picked up concerns regarding the aircraft after a "qualified" lame has done a walkaround, and I'm just a pilot who has to strap his ass to the thing. Every one of us misses things / makes mistakes, we are only human, no problem there, I would prefer an extra set of eyes but this is pure scaremongering by the media. Mr p from the alaea should be careful. Qantas was hit in the media similarly last year, I disagreed with that then too. Having said that I would however prefer an engineer for "every" pushback...not most. In this case it wouldn't have helped anyway. - Highlighting the old problem. Machines break.

Kimir, I fail to see any scaremongering here? We are talking about the same incident are we?

I'm not sure I'd be to happy If my loved ones had just boarded that aircraft.

Barkly1992:
They sure did and were told to take down any photos that clearly showed the Airline name on the fuselage. The only photo they could use was just a close up of the nose on the ground with a truck blocking out the Ansett Australia titles.

What was the rego of the VB aircraft with the axle problem?
How old was it?
I thought most VB aircraft were fairly recent models.....:confused:

Aircraft was VH-VBA, one of the first 737NG's the company puchased. An '01 model I believe.

And Getzo, yes an inspection was definately carried out before the aircraft taxiied back. Engineers went out to the aircraft on the taxiway to assess the issue and deemed it ok for them to taxi back to the gate, albeit a very slow taxi.

Just to make it clear, on all VB flights there is a preflight walk around, the pilots are required to do a walk around prior to every flight but are probably only allowed 10-15mins for this. If there is a PPU (power push back unit) it would be an engineer doing the push, once again due to VB's short turn around there is only about 10 -15 minutes to do a walk around.
You may have seen the bag boys doing a walk around prior to a flight, unfortunately these guys are only trained to drive the tug, plug in a headset to speak to the crew and tell them the chocks are in. So any walk around performed by a bag handler would only be looking for the obvious things i.e. refueling panel closed, engine oil panels closed (although wouldn't check the oil fill cap is on), holds are shut and so on.

But despite all this, if there was a obvious sign of corrosion on the nose landing gear this would have most likely been noticed by the R&D bag boy.

makespeed250, perhaps you shouldn't let your loved ones fly in an aeroplane ever again then. As I said, complex machines sometimes break, have flaws. That is why redundancy is built in, sometimes even that is not enough. Scaremongering - I say yes. The media as usual reporting the worst possible outcome in an attempt to gain ratings. Fact - a nose wheel came off, not saying it is a good thing. We are trained to land without any nosegear, lowering the nose before loosing elevator effectiveness. But reported as "the aircraft could be destroyed". It is like having a small accident in the car on the way to work and them saying you could have been killed. Quite possible any time I get in my car. Scaremongering, because the media have an insatiable desire to instill fear in the travelling public. They do it to all the airlines.

Steve P is doing his job.Doing his best to get LAME's the best possible wages for their qual's and work and to get as many employed as possible.
I doubt anyone could have seen the issue developing but there have been many occasions when a dispatch LAME has.

Having 2 sets of eyes do a walk around is a good thing.So many times things are picked up.Sometimes pilots see thing we dont and many times the other way.Thats our job.And it is team work in the end.
Bird strikes , cracks fuel leaks hyd leaks, missed lightning strikes, ground handling damage etc.
I'm amazed at what some of the guys find doing a walk around.Cracks in fuselage , hori stab cracks.:ok:

The more eyes on the job the better.All the better if its from a pilots perspective and a LAME.'s too.

I'm sorry kimir, but I don't agree. A wheel fell off. It fell off. That means it was not very well attached before the plane left the terminal. Forget that it is the airline industry, in any industry this would be unacceptable. It would be unacceptable if it fell off a bus. I don't want to hear that pilots are trained to land without front wheels. (And in any case, I'm not sure they trained to take off without the front wheels.)

While I agree that the media scaremongers, and work to instill fear (about everything) it's difficult not to percieve a wheel falling off during taxi as a serious issue.

The facts remain that for the last four years at least all airlines have been introducing procedures reducing the number of LAMES required prior to dispatch and pushback. There is as we all know is balanced by the risk of incident. We have now seen an occurence that may or may not be predicated on the reduced number of LAMES present on the tarmac.
Having said all that how anyone let alone a LAME could see corrosion of an axle contained within the nosewheel assembly is indeterminate(unless ofcourse you have x-ray vision).

Lets face it accidents sometimes happen, but sometimes the latent failures sit there and remain latent and only the most rigid of systems can combat this.

Thanks Vee1
Gee......... I have seen shopping trolleys made in 2001 that still have their wheels on them:uhoh:
"If it's not Airbus..I am not going":ok:

Was getting ready to depart myself and heard all the radio chatter and saw the aircraft. Appeared to be very well handled by the crew and its sounds like the passengers were never put at any extra risk following the event. Well done.

Bud leon, sorry mate perhaps i should sugar coat it for you and tell you nothing ever goes wrong. We also never operate with defects allowed by the ddg/mel. If you read my post you will notice I agree that it is a serious thing, don't deny that. On a previous post I said i would also like an engineer to do a walkaround on top of mine. I suppose we could carry an engineer every time we go to an outport without engineering too. Many things we do ever so slightly reduce safety in the name of economics. Reduced thrust takeoffs as an example. Can you tell me whether a pilot, or a pilot and an engineer did a walkaround. I doubt it. An engineer can't always be expected to pick something up.... especially if it fails away from the gate. The next time you go somewhere in an aeroplane there is a possibility that there is a flaw in the aircraft that may have been there since manufacture date. United DC-10 (sioux city) springs to mind. Yes we are trained to handle many problems, that is a GOOD thing.

Trouble is the responsibility for the safe operation of the aircraft is slowly, but surely moving away from the operator and onto the Pilot in Command, while at the same time resources to support the safe operation are being removed.

I think all are agreed this was an "unusual" event and one that rightly has focussed attention.

VB started their gig with new aircraft and so have been entitled to claim a dream run by making that strategic decision and commitment.

Lets put aside the issue of walkarounds for the moment, other than to consider what may be acceptable for a new fleet may well not be acceptable as the fleet ages. That is pure risk management.

The issue for me as SLF is whether the aircraft have been correctly maintained AND whether their capacity to handle an ageing fleet is in place.

It does seem unusual that corrosion that can cause such an event wasnt picked up, but will leave that to the experts.