The United Airlines aircraft has remained on the ground in Seattle since the incident on August 24.
I think this is where the experts hang out but isn’t it true that maintainers let these tires basically shred themselves to death before they change them out? Seems like this could just be a preventative maintenance problem and someone at the airline being irresponsible in approving required replacement.
Everything on a plane has a prescribed maintenance and inspection interval. They’re not letting them “shred themselves to death”, a tire blow out at the wrong time (when dealing with another emergency, or from leaving shrapnel on the runway, etc) could kill a plane full of people.
Went to a museum that had historical army planes and a man there told me the tires on planes had to be changed after 100 flights from the wear and tear of landing. Not sure how much that’s changed from the early jets he was talking about, but certainly not an aspect of flight that I’d considered.
Once again, way to go Boeing.
As someone who has worked at a Tire and Brake shop for an airline, it is the airlines fault not Boeing. It’s not Ford’s fault if your Ford Explorer blows a tire 10 years into your ownership. Boeing is the dealer, airlines are the buyer/owner/maintainer. Only exception to this is if Boeing is specifically contracted for maintenance as is the case for the US government and military equipment.
Tires and brakes do have scheduled inspection periods, however you can get edge cases. I’ve changed tires that were ripped to shreds because the planes anti-skid system failed so several hundred thousand pounds of weight just got dragged across the pavement on an immovable block of rubber lmao.
This is on the airline not Boeing
Serious question: is this bad?
No. One tire blew on takeoff and they landed at the destination without issue.
The 737 has 4 wheels on the main gear, 2 on the front. The loss of a single tire does not make the plane unsafe to land.
Tire blowouts are included in the takeoff brief. They plan for the possibility, aborting the takeoff if it happens below a certain speed, continuing as normal if it happens above it.
This is a calculated risk, as its something that happens from time to time with no real danger to the aircraft.
I listen to air traffic control animated incidents on and off on yt, so take it with a grain of salt. But wheels falling off during flight, while I wouldn’t say it is common, it is not exactly unheard of as well. Pilots and ground crews are well equipped to handle such incidents.
The plane didn’t lose a wheel it has a tire blowout.
