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UA Flight suffers tyre blow-out

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UA Flight suffers tyre blow-out

Old 18th Aug 2012, 23:22
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UA Flight suffers tyre blow-out

CNN reports a UA flight returned to Newark Libety Intl after a tyre blow-out on take-off and was ingested into an engine causing a fire.
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Old 18th Aug 2012, 23:37
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Flight returning to Newark after engine problem

From Susan Candiotti, CNN National Correspondent

updated 7:25 PM EDT, Sat August 18, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Witnesses report fire in engine
United flight was taking off for Berlin
FBI: Piece of tire flew into Boeing 757 engine

New York (CNN) -- A United Airlines flight was returning Saturday evening to Newark Liberty International Airport after a tire blew during takeoff and flew into an engine, FBI spokeswoman Barbara Woodruff said.

Flight 96, a Boeing 757, reported a problem in its left engine after it left New Jersey for Berlin, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.

The engine was operating properly and the plane was burning fuel before landing, according to the FAA.

Eyewitness Keisha Thomas, who was traveling on the New Jersey Turnpike, said she witnessed fireballs near a wing at about 6:25 p.m.

Thomas heard a loud sound, describing it as "pow, pow, pow." The plane was circling the airport, she said.

Djenaba Johnson-Jones, who lives near the airport, said she heard an unusual noise and saw fire, but not smoke, coming from the aircraft's left engine.

Eyewitness Dennis Ostolaza said he heard a "propeller sound" akin to a military helicopter as the airliner gained altitude after takeoff, with "black smoke and fire spitting out of the engine."
Flight returning to Newark after engine problem - CNN.com

Looks like they are holding to burn off fuel:

FlightAware
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Old 19th Aug 2012, 02:13
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Scenario sounds very similar to the Concorde accident in Paris

Last edited by fjouve; 19th Aug 2012 at 02:14.
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Old 19th Aug 2012, 02:25
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Landed safely... crew was able to restart affected engine.

I'll be interested to find out if this was a main gear tire, and the explosive force was enough to put rubber shrapnel ahead of the engine intakes...

Or sent rubber up the tailpipe...

or if it was a nosegear failure.

Last edited by pattern_is_full; 19th Aug 2012 at 02:27.
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Old 19th Aug 2012, 03:20
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Not unheard of for a main gear tyre to shed pieces forward, aft, upwards, some of which bounce around and may be ingested into an engine causing fan damage similar to a bird strike.

Again not at all unusual for a damaged engine to emit pops, flame spurts and then smoke out a tailpipe. Pilot shuts down affected engine, and makes an airturnback as expected.

No comparison with the Concord event on several areas.

fodder for spectators corner
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Old 19th Aug 2012, 10:55
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It is possible for a main gear tyre to shed tread which may enter an engine intake. This may or may not cause an engine surge which may or may not auto-recover.
It is also possible for tread to enter the intake and damage fan blades and for the crew to have no indication of fan damage until after arrival at destination.
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Old 19th Aug 2012, 11:52
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At least the FBI's on the case.
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Old 19th Aug 2012, 19:32
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did it occur to anyone that the tire ingested into the engine was from another plane? while I suppose a nose tire might find its way into the engines of a 757, a main gear tire is much less likely to do so.

On the DC9 we did worry about a blown tire getting ingested into an engine...for obvious reasons...but a 757?
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Old 19th Aug 2012, 19:38
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One might be surprised at the distance FOD can be blown into an intake...they suck gobs of air, and not all from the front......
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Old 19th Aug 2012, 20:38
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a main gear tire is much less likely to do so.
But, in my experience, it has done - on a B747.
The weather at Frankfurt was windy. The engines were windmilling. No one noticed -except for an alert ground engineer - that there was an odd shadow rotating with the fan. He stopped it rotating and, to cut a long boring story short, we were just outside vibration limits to go. Sorry guys.

In the past, I've had a bit of a go at Frankfurt but this ground engineer was the only one of FE, pilot, Gnd Eng who noticed the damage.

Last edited by Basil; 19th Aug 2012 at 20:38.
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Old 20th Aug 2012, 09:37
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Isn't restarting an engine after suspected foreign object ingestion a bad idea?

Presonally, I have never crossed the pond in a narrow body and I'm intending not to in the future, even if there are probably no statistics to back this up.
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Old 20th Aug 2012, 11:32
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Isn't restarting an engine after suspected foreign object ingestion a bad idea?
In general, I'd agree. The one I mentioned was a B747F operated by a well known Oriental outfit and we think the fan was damaged on departure from Dubai. The fan damage was in line with the bypass duct and the dimensions of distortion were just within the permitted limit subject to a vibration check in all ranges.
Unfortunately, the vib was just outside limits so we couldn't operate. Don't think we had anything perishable on board.
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Old 20th Aug 2012, 12:35
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Isn't restarting an engine after suspected foreign object ingestion a bad idea?
I mitta written this on here B4, but anyway, I'd agree. However, we hit a bird [737-200] climbing out of KLNK for KOMA and shut down #1 as it started vibrating a little. Upon landing and checking it out, only one fan blade was bent in half. We changed planes and left. When we came back a few days later, we asked the mechs what they did with the A/C. They said they cut off the blade and filed the oposite one down the same amount and ferried the plane to KSFO on BOTH engines!! So.....if you're gonna hit a bird, make sure they damage the blades symetrically !!
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Old 20th Aug 2012, 15:44
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Presonally, I have never crossed the pond in a narrow body and I'm intending not to in the future, even if there are probably no statistics to back this up.
Then you must be too young to have travelled in a B707, DC8 or VC10, let alone the four engined piston and turboprop airliners that preceded them. FWIW B757's have been operating across the pond in strength since 1987.
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Old 20th Aug 2012, 18:03
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Originally Posted by sevenstrokeroll
did it occur to anyone that the tire ingested into the engine was from another plane? while I suppose a nose tire might find its way into the engines of a 757, a main gear tire is much less likely to do so.

On the DC9 we did worry about a blown tire getting ingested into an engine...for obvious reasons...but a 757?
I remember blowing a main gear tire at Vr on a 737-200 many yrs ago. As we rotated, there was a loud explosion & we could see from the cockpit, chunks of rubber flying past, ahead of the nose. After landing, there was no engine damage, but black tire marks down the rear fuselage & holes punched through the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer. A high speed tire failure is extremely violent.
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Old 20th Aug 2012, 19:58
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did it occur to anyone that the tire ingested into the engine was from another plane? while I suppose a nose tire might find its way into the engines of a 757, a main gear tire is much less likely to do so.
all the data bases involving confirmed tyre ingestion into engines were found to be the same aircraft that lost the tyre.

I always chocked (sic) this up to clean runway sweeps following a tyre failure
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Old 20th Aug 2012, 20:42
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Isn't restarting an engine after suspected foreign object ingestion a bad idea?
Sorry, newbie here but I agree with BRE. They needed to burn off fuel to get to MLDW but I don't think it was that time critical that they needed to restart and operate the " damaged " engine. They were already in the vicinity of some major airports, which also have longish runways enough to cater for overweight landings.

If they were over the oceans on ETOPS or over high terrain, then I reckoned it would be prudent to attempt restarts on the afflicted engine.

Anyway, a good outome...the crew did a great job!
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Old 20th Aug 2012, 23:26
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are we not making a stretch assumption that they actually restarted the engine ?
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Old 21st Aug 2012, 04:15
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...are we not making a stretch assumption that they actually restarted the engine ?
Well, the source for "both engines operating normally at landing" is the FAA.

The source for the burst tire is the FBI.

Given the relative aviation expertise of those two agencies, we should probably question the burst tire as a more suspect assumption than the engine restart.

Anyway, you can read the AvHerald report and place your bets accordingly....

Incident: United B752 at Newark on Aug 18th 2012, blew tyre on takeoff, both engines "red"
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Old 21st Aug 2012, 07:02
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pattern_is_full, thank you for the link to Aviation Herald. I apologise for my earlier misgivings about the crew restarting the afflicted engine. I now realise why they had good reasons to do so. Top marks to the crew for a superb job done. Bravo!
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