737 Landing With Blown Tire

[L-38]

The television media had reported (and shown) a long line of responding fire / rescue trucks that was waiting for the aircraft's arrival. The line of trucks were actually over 1/2 of a mile long! . . Wasn't this "overkill' for an incident as simple as a single blown tire?

(My personal experience has proven that casualties from such incidents, have more to do with induced heart attack's occurring to individual pax's prone to excitement from all of the fuss.)

[Luke_08]

aaaaah lets all run and hide under the table

[Roadtrip]

It's the ARRF commander's decision on what he calls out for the emergency. My guess is that he expected a normal landing, but was prepared for the worst. Not too much cost to roll the extra manpower. They probably appreciated the chance to exercise the equipment and get out of the ready room for a while as well.

Besides the same Monday-morning quarterbacks (like dimwit blondes on the network morning shows) that would criticize him for bringing the majority of the brigade to the fight would also crucify him if something bad happened and all the equipment wasn't there.

[westhawk]

Thank you Roadtrip for a couple of entirely sensible posts.

Westhawk

[Centaurus]

I've NEVER trained for a blown tire in the simulator in almost 30 years of flying. There were always much more serious things to train for.

My company trains for blown tyre both on take off and landing run. The real concern is that crews will abort the take off right up to V1 if the blow-out occurs. The teaching is that after 20 knots below V1 it is safer to continue the take off due loss of braking efficiency. Blown tyres late in the take off run are more common that engine failures and the danger is in the abort as mentioned. To say there are always much more serious things to train for is rather a foolish statement. We train in the simulator for serious non-normals and blown tyres on take off is potentially extremely serious and thus competence at handling this situation has to be certified on the pilots records.

[Roadtrip]

It is not a "foolish" statement. A blown tire (assuming that you can even correctly assess that you have one during the takeoff run), comes under the heading of something you should not ordinarily high speed abort for, for the reasons you have outlined. That (and many other malfuctions) comes under rejected takeoff decision training, which does receive much emphasis in the sim. The second part of that is if you low speed abort, what are you going to do differently and if you continue the takeoff what are you going to do differently while on the runway? Again, assuming you even know you have a failed tire (of course different aircraft may have different physical cues of tire failure). If you assess the problem in time, not raising the gear to prevent further damage is likely what the QRH specifies.

Now, you're company may make tire failures a sim training item, and more power to you if they have the sim time, but I'm saying that on my personal part, I cannot remember ever being given that scenario in an emergency procedures sim and I'm type rated in four Boeing 7-series airplanes from the 707 to the 747, plus experience in 4 engine military aircraft where sim time was much more available. I got my blown tire training on-the-job, and the failure modes I had never caused any serious concern. As is often the case, specific training and emphasis items will vary by company and indeed by national aviation authority.

[jamie230985]

The reason the A/C stayed close to LAX was due to the AA standard operating procedures, your right in referring to the terrible Concorde incident, that was one of the worst accidents resulting from this exact situation.

Ultimately if the plane stayed where it did, it could limp back to the airport should it need to and LAX ATC could arrange for the correct services to be in place for landing.

It may also be due to the fact that AA has a maintenance base at LAX, we'll never know!!

[bubbers44]

Blowing a tire on takeoff with no FOD damage to engines sop is to leave the gear down and return for landing after evaluating landing weight. The only time I ever continued a flight after being unable to retract the gear was a LAS to LAX flight scheduled for 45 minutes because leaving the gear down just restricted my airspeed and altitude causing a 20 minute delay in landing rather than returning and causing many hours of delay. They did everything right in my opinion. We always get all the input we can but pilots make the final decision on what to do. Sometimes when you are talking to maintenance you need to realise what they are telling you might be mechanically correct but not an authorized procedure for a pilot using his check lists. Remember Alaska Airlines MD80 stab trim problem near Santa Barbara, Ca?

[DC-ATE]

Before transitioning to the DC-8, I was both Co-Pilot and Captain on the 737-200 and -300. While Co-Pilot (they call 'em First Officers now), we called for "the equipment" on three different occasions; all precautionary. One for a bird strike; engine showed vibration and we reduced power (didn't shut it down): one for a faulty gear indication: and one for a blown tire.

The blown tire (one of the Mains - don't remember which) happened on take-off out of O'Hare for Detroit just past V1/R (about the same number on the -200). It was my leg. I tried to give it back to the Captain, but he said it was my leg and to "take care of it!" [We knew each other very well] There was some slight shaking of the aircraft, but no big deal. We continued the take-off (left the gear out), notified the Tower, and after "consulting with the Company", continued on to DTW where a normal landing was made.

No big deal really with ONE blown tire. That's why there's two or more.