I agree that you cannot decern much from the picture.
However you may have seen something that is harmless. There is a condition known as spiral wrap which happens when a tire is re-treaded. You may see little bits of chord sticking out all over the tire. This is a totally acceptable condition although it does look sketchy the manufacturer's have ensured us the tire is ok for service.
The chord you would need to see would be the layers of chord which are under the black tread.
You would see white lines like a thin cuorduroy going diagonally across the tire. This may even be hard to spot from far.
Even once this chord is showing most AMM's will allow for the aircrfat to continue to the next available maintence station providing the chord showing does not eceed dpth or wear specs.
Hope this helps.

East and West
 

The Eastern Block aircraft tyres are usually of completely different design to those found in the west (both are usually round, but flat at the bottom). Antonovs are designed to work away from based for ages without signficant maintenance and wear through several layers of canvas is quite acceptable. Pity the Dutch investigators did not realise this when the kept on complaining abou tyre state!

Anyway, in Russia, "canvas support" is something for aircraft and politicians alike.

Depends on the Aircraft and make, some tyres have wear limits to the cord layers which is when you change them, they look like scrap but are perfectly safe............ remember the pilot and crew have the same tbuilt in urge to live as well so just query it politly, they will reassure you if you are worried and will take an extra look.............. If the woman on the Aloha 737 had chirped up at her concern then perhaps the odd person would still be with us today :)

[joke]
I can see the air inside.
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/2...wearec3.th.jpg
[/joke]

Hey "Ifixplanes"

I may change the wheel in that pic but I would first find out how many landings before the aircraft got back to main base :ok:

PS That pic shows the air on the outside. A completely different limit to apply altogether