DJ Tyre Blowout At Sydney
 

Yesterday(April 30, 2008) at 4:20pm DJ414 opperated by VH-VBI was begining it's takeoff roll down RWY34L as a giant puff of white smoke was expelled from the aircraft's landing gear. The DJ pilot said he was suffered a tire blowout and there was as object that appeared about 30cm long and 2cm wide which caught his eye about 300m from the 34L threshold about 2m to the left of the centreline.

The Sydney Tower controller(120.5) replied "Your inside left tyre is shreaded" as they exited at Bravo rapid exit. RWY34L was closed for about 20mins as Car 2 and 3 searched the runway for any problems. They said they saw hundreds of little bits of shreaded tyre but no sight of the metal bar(much like the Concorde story). They called the runway to be closed and required a sweep cleaner to come on the runway and clear it ASAP as "QF5 SYD-SIN-FRA" (VH-OJJ) had been holding at A6 for almost this whole time in which all flights were diverted to 34R.

According to Sydney Tower, they were having an interesting conversation with Car 2 saying that an earlier flight "Malaysian Cargo 747-200F" had a very rough landing(very smoking and hard which I saw) according to the MASkargo captain who was contacted.

Runway 34L in total was closed for about 1 hour until BA10 was taxiing for departure and EK419 was about to land. Although there wasnt much good traffic besides a few cargos that arrived/departed it wasn't the best day for spotting until I got a situation like this.

I will post some pics soon, although you can't see much of the popped tyre as it was an inside one.

Thanks for reading!

Tim

Are you a journalist or a budding journalist? You should know that misquoting people is not very nice.

It wasn't a request, it was a statement. The runway was not available, period, due to debris. In a situation like this, it is a standard procedure.

The holding time of QF5 or indeed any go-arounds or diversions affected by it is not a priority. Making sure the runway is fully serviceable before the next movement, not matter how soon or otherwise, is the priority. If delays are experienced, so be it, but the biggest concern was the fast fading light conditions.

No im not a jounalist Nigel, i do General English in school. Why are you having a go at me for reporting something i saw happen yesterday? Im not a professional news reporter, nor do i want to be one. Is there anything i can say and you won't get angry?

your post is over the top,

Banjo

Jesus how uptight are some people around here. Tim was just calling it for what he saw he wasn't giving a sworn affadavit of exactly what transpired. Nor did he say he was giving his expert opinion. Leave the guy alone.

I for one appreciated the read and thought it was very interesting.

WOW.. I can just feel the love in the room! ;)

Guys guys guys... all this emotion and anger.

Maybe (just maybe) Nigel's response wasn't filled with the anger that some have claimed.. I cannot be sure, so how can anyone else.. The body of the text, in my opinion, could be read either way.

We all know that it is hard to communicate the feeling of a conversation with text - so I for one would give it the benefit of the doubt.

Just my 2 cents

cheers
Paul

PS. I did enjoy the story Tim.

Looks like Nigel likes to notch up alot of posts - 267 in just over a month. :)

Hi Tim,

I hope you post the pics soon, I am interested in the whole event.

Thanks,

Steve S.

I'd rather hear from Nigel that would have more accurate information than a post full of hearsay.

another day at the office by the sounds of it...