Swiss Air Wednesday night
 

What happened to the Swiss A340 on wednesday night in Hong Kong? Anybody know???? ATC????

finally someone bringing it up. i was thinking how the hell did it coverup so well

more ...... please!

Is that the one that was issued the incorrect SID via PDC? Ended up flying the OCEAN 2 or something over Kowloon in the middle of the night.

Swiss A340 stranded halfway down taxiway J with No 4 engine damage & all tyres deflated on right hand main bogie.

Pax were disembarked via stairs & returned to terminal by bus. Aircraft surrounded by fire trucks & engineers trying to work out how to move it.

Some kind of wheel failure apparently. One of the hubs blew apart during taxi, throwing bits into the No 4 engine. Caused extensive damage.

Yeah we taxied past as it occurred, couldn't hang around to find out unfortunately, but heard the Pilots asking what damage was evident.......

Would have been easier if the pilots had asked what wasn't damaged :\

Hub failure of some sort, tyre exited stage right at near light-speed, boing-boing, must have bounced somehow, flipped up, then took out 2x c-ducts on the #4. My guess is BER on the c-ducts. Engine itself was pretty lucky.

But of course this is only a rumour I heard from the guy that shines the shoes in Terminal 1......

Happy Flying,

N1 Vibes:ok:

Hard to believe that a tire can damage an engine when only taxying..? Surely there was enough clearance between #4 and the ground...?

Have a look at another thread running on jetblast concerning the American Captain who was killed holding on to a car tyre. Follow that on to the Mythbusters tyre explosion segment. You'll probably treat tyres with more respect from now on.

Air under pressure can indeed be a great propellant, ask the mechanic who was shot in the butt :eek: by the top of a LOX cylinder that some idiot was incorrectly working on, from over 20 metres away, almost killed the poor bloke.
So large amounts of damage caused by exploding tyres would not be surprising.

O:eek::eek::eek:...I would not kick the tyres again during walkaround !

My hot tip for the day is when you're unsure about anything, enter the hold and dial up IOC, have them patch you through to the RAAF headquarters in Australia or my place in Kowloon. I'll personally enter a deep meditation and channel the aviation god and deliver divine aeronautical advice from the creator.

Another option is to run a CRM model and work through the problem in a clear and concise manner. I like to use the "T.O.S.S" model when things get a bit curly.

T ... Talk about yourself like you've never talked before
O... Observe the faces of those pretending to listen
S ... See the guy next to you burst into tears from laughter
S ... Seek help for delusions of grandeur

I'll be signing autographed copies of FCOMs today in the street, $19.95 and the proceeds go to NAMBLA :ok:

A more interesting question is what can cause this tire burst at HKG?

Captain TP,

Whilst that post had me laughing any chance we can keep this thread on topic?

Fac6 :ok:

just a bit of info on how dangerous aircraft tyres are:
the first inflation of a newly assembled aircraft wheel after a tyre change is normally done in a steel cage. they rarely fail, but if they do they could kill anyone standing nearby.

So the next time that I inflate the wheels of the Volkswagen I should stand in a steel cage. Have I got this right?

I've had Engineers change many tyres on the 777 and never once did they put a cage around the wheel before inflating it? Was it pre-inflated before arriving at the a/c perhaps?

exactly. Once the wheels are assembled they are stored pre-inflated.

@ TKT .. Volkswagen wheels aren't usually assembled by bolting 2 half-hubs into a tubeless tyre, so you can breathe a sigh of relief, now that you're out of mortal danger ;)

Tyre change - when a wheel assy goes to the wheel overhaul facility to replace the worn out tyre. This is when it is inflated in a cage.

Wheel change - when a worn out wheel assy is removed from an a/c.

Wheel assy's are normally stored at 40psi not 200psi, once on they are inflated to the nominal pressure. You'll notice that those inflating the tyre on the a/c stand in line with the wheel assy, so should the hub fail it doesn't take their legs off.