Qantas Jet Blows tires On takeoff from LAX

[Matt_L]

An official at Los Angeles International Airport says an Australia-bound Qantas jet carrying hundreds of passengers blew four tyres while trying to take off and got stranded on the runway.

Airport spokeswoman Treva Miller says none of the 232 passengers or crew on Qantas Flight 12 to Sydney was hurt in the incident late yesterday.

Flight operations at the airport were not expected to be affected.

Miller says the pilot aborted takeoff after he noticed a warning light go off as he took the Boeing 747-400 down the runway at 11.05pm (1705 AEDT).

The plane came to rest, stuck on an adjacent runway.

Emergency personnel got everyone off the jet without incident.

AP

[Lukas M]

http://origin.mercurynews.com/breaki...nclick_check=1

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=230382

Newsbreak said 3 tyres burst, it was VH-OEJ, quite new

[Nick W.]

channel 9 said 3 tyres, but whatever.

headline to the latest C9 news bulletin, with images of the aircraft and voiceover saying it is stranded on the taxiway.

it is Wunula.

[John R]

An official at Los Angeles International Airport says an Australia-bound Qantas jet carrying hundreds of passengers blew four tyres while trying to take off and got stranded on the runway.

more details (plus grainy pic) http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=230382

[NickN]

From reading alot of message boards it seems these events are fairly common (blown tires). How often are they expected to happen?

Obviously the tires are checked prior to every departure, what would the reason for a blowout of 3 tires be?

[Craig Murray]

Originally Posted by NickN

what would the reason for a blowout of 3 tires be?

From hearing reports ranging from passengers being thrown out of their seats and the take off being aborted while the nose was off the ground I think it would be a safe assumption that the tyres (I prefer the Australian spelling of round rubber things) were blown during the rejected take off (RTO) phase of the departure. Given the aircrafts high gross weight for the flight across the Pacific a rejected take off easily has the potential to cause burst tyres. Howver in this instance I think it would be pretty safe to say the tyre issue was a result of another issue on board that gave the crew reason to reject the departure.

As always, I'd prefer to come to a stop on the runway with a few tyres deflated than end up scattered across the floor of the Pacific Ocean because the crew decided to ignore an aircraft fault.

But seriously, passengers thrown out of their seats? Faulty seatbelts, faulty passengers or faulty media reporting?

[Ryan N]

According to Sunrise on channel 7, the tyres automatically blow out as a safety precaution, to prevent overheating and causing a fire.

[Kent Broadhead]

What a stupid emphasis in the story - the tyres are always likely to burst in that situation. More importantly - why was the takeoff rejecdted at that late stage?

Kent

[Sarah C]

There is a lot of hysteria about the story and already a lot of "experts" on the breakfast TV shows speculating without any facts. Let the investigators do thier job - the passengers are on thier way now. As Craig said, I think all of the passengers would have preferred that stop than ignore a warning light and have a major accident somewhere over the Pacific.

[Simon Hoby]

I think the most accurate report that I have heard so far came from the reporter that Channel 7 had at LAX. He said that the there were three tyres that blew, apparently by design as well. He said that an Engineer had told him that because of the intense internal pressure that the tyres are subject to during at emergency stop, they are fitted with a thermal plug which is designed to rupture. This apparently prevents a fire which could spread to the aircraft.

Additionally they said it was QF12 with 217 people on board. hardly a full load for a 744. The aircraft is still at LAX as it needed to be inspected and obviously fitted with new tyres as well.