T H A I Aircraft Tyre Bursts While Landing At Suvarnabhumi Airport Arriving From India

[Chao Lao Beach]

Probably due to a heavy landing, (nose first), hope the checked they checked the nose gear before putting back into service.

Best ones are when they leave the parking break on for landing, thats 10 tyers to change and a big laundry bill for a full flight.

I am not aware of the ins and outs of the 330, but I think you will find a WOW switch that will not allow this to happen. Yes it is possible on light aircraft like a Cessna 172 though, but only effecting 2 wheels.

[Payboy]

Other paper reports today that the tyres did not burst. Just under inflated on the front noted after take off, needing an emergency landing at BKK.

[maprao]

Probably due to a heavy landing, (nose first), hope the checked they checked the nose gear before putting back into service.

Best ones are when they leave the parking break on for landing, thats 10 tyers to change and a big laundry bill for a full flight.

Nose first landing is almost impossible. Landingspeed means flaps in landing position and wheels down with result nose up long before touch down.

Parking brakes on is not possible too because this will only be activated when the weight is on the wheels activated by the wow-switch (Weight On Wheels switch) in the landing gear bay. By the way, parking brakes are only working on the main gear, 8 wheels.

Airbus software releases the brakes once the aircraft is in a landing configuration. So it will never happen.

[Ace of Pop]

They should buy a Tyre Pressure Gauge from Tesco Lotus.

[Udox]

They should buy a Tyre Pressure Gauge from Tesco Lotus.

Apparently they did !

[EyesWideOpen]

It would appear that this aircraft, an Airbus A330, had the optional Tire Pressure Monitoring System, since they were aware the pressure was low while they were in flight. Thus it seems to me there was an error in the pre-flight check list in order for the pilot to overlook this serious problem. So pilot error......

Edited March 17, 2013 by EyesWideOpen

[Chicog]

It would appear that this aircraft, an Airbus A330, had the optional Tire Pressure Monitoring System, since they were aware the pressure was low while they were in flight. Thus it seems to me there was an error in the pre-flight check list in order for the pilot to overlook this serious problem. So pilot error......

The flight crew receive a (probably handwritten) log from the ground crew indicating tyre pressures, and they generally rely on it being factual.

However, if someone in Kolkata can't be arsed to faff around looking for a nitrogen tank...

Edited March 17, 2013 by Chicog

[negreanu]

It would appear that this aircraft, an Airbus A330, had the optional Tire Pressure Monitoring System, since they were aware the pressure was low while they were in flight. Thus it seems to me there was an error in the pre-flight check list in order for the pilot to overlook this serious problem. So pilot error......

Not necessarily.

1. The low pressure situation could have arisen after the aircraft got airborne.

2. The aircraft could have left origin with a lower pressure if it was above the minimum required legally and approved by aviation authority and Airbus.

[MaxLee]

OMG I was on this flight on the 14th! OK, nothing happened then although I almost changed my flight to the flight in question! However, TG313/TG314 especially the outbound Bangkok-Kolkata sector tends to be full of Indian traders, who check-in tons of baggage not to mention bring a heap of carry-on luggage on board the aircraft. Although not likely a factor in this tire burst (particularly upon landing when the aircraft is much lighter anyway) it is worth mentioning that flights on this route are usually heavily loaded with passengers and cargo, more so than most other flights I've been on to other destinations.

Well that explains a lot then. A very pushy folks those rich Indian people, by character and attitude, I understand...

[krisb]

Only a tyre, not an engine.

[krisb]

Only problem I have with Thai air is you have to always fly back into Bangkok if you want to go to Chiang mai, Samui, or Khonkaen etc. Sucks a bit.

[khaosai]

I am a current and qualified airline pilot. A blown tire is an a non-event, can happen on a perfect landing. AC tires endure enormous stresses, they don't last forever.

Hi,

I wouldn't go so far to say landing on a blown tire is a non event. You may experience direction control issues if landing with a flat main gear tire. The aircraft may yaw towards the flat tire or yaw away from the flat tire depending on the amount of brake application. Definitely something to consider if you have a tire pressure indication on the flight deck.

[TheGhostWithin]

And another TG aircraft blew its front Tyre out today on landing at Auckland International (ex Bangkok). Reference source, a friend whom was on the flight and also the NZ Herald website.

I doubt the loading argument is the issue, as although the Indian and Bangladeshi flights tend to be overloaded with excessive check in and also overweight carry on luggage, the NZ flights tend to be more restrictive, particularly on carry on luggage (I know, my girlfriend who is here in NZ with me now used to be a check in gal at Suvarnabhumi).

It appears that two on a day is too much of a coincidence, and may be a maintenance or fitting issue.

This is not something trivial, it is a safety issue and an aviation safety authority outside of Thailand with authority and the courage to accept a fault and insure it is rectified needs to take charge here.

Reason for the edit: To add in the negate/overloading argument.

Edited March 17, 2013 by TheGhostWithin

[joboss]

There had been two x Thai A340's parked at Don Mueang airport for three weeks now, both with all the eight engines covered in red protection caps. They must be losing money with them out of service! Wonder what's up with them?

Maybe.. Their are inefficient and

considered a junker.

More recently Airbus and even its rival

Boeing have been buying A340s back from airlines as trade-ins to

facilitate sales of more efficient two-engined aircraft.

Read more on Gooo

[joboss]

They should buy a Tyre Pressure Gauge from Tesco Lotus.

Apparently they did !

Supplied in Kolkata and scorced in China. Tesco-Lotus.. No.

[arunsakda]

You guys should check out www.pprune.org . Thousands of aviation enthusiasts pro and amateur alike analyze and dissect every mishap reported worldwide .

[GentlemanJim]

And another TG aircraft blew its front Tyre out today on landing at Auckland International (ex Bangkok). Reference source, a friend whom was on the flight and also the NZ Herald website.

I doubt the loading argument is the issue, as although the Indian and Bangladeshi flights tend to be overloaded with excessive check in and also overweight carry on luggage, the NZ flights tend to be more restrictive, particularly on carry on luggage (I know, my girlfriend who is here in NZ with me now used to be a check in gal at Suvarnabhumi).

It appears that two on a day is too much of a coincidence, and may be a maintenance or fitting issue.

This is not something trivial, it is a safety issue and an aviation safety authority outside of Thailand with authority and the courage to accept a fault and insure it is rectified needs to take charge here.

Reason for the edit: To add in the negate/overloading argument.

[philw]

And another TG aircraft blew its front Tyre out today on landing at Auckland International (ex Bangkok). Reference source, a friend whom was on the flight and also the NZ Herald website.

I doubt the loading argument is the issue, as although the Indian and Bangladeshi flights tend to be overloaded with excessive check in and also overweight carry on luggage, the NZ flights tend to be more restrictive, particularly on carry on luggage (I know, my girlfriend who is here in NZ with me now used to be a check in gal at Suvarnabhumi).

It appears that two on a day is too much of a coincidence, and may be a maintenance or fitting issue.

This is not something trivial, it is a safety issue and an aviation safety authority outside of Thailand with authority and the courage to accept a fault and insure it is rectified needs to take charge here.

Reason for the edit: To add in the negate/overloading argument.

GJ, at last I agree with you 100%

It's a flat tyre.

Not symptomatic of the overall general malaise of Thai society, the wonderful performance of Wales yesterday or even the overall safety record of TG which is well within industry standards.

A tyre burst on landing, the aircraft did not burst into flames and 20 minutes later it's business as normal at the airport.

Exactly the same as it would be at Frankfurt, Chicago or Heathrow.

[EyesWideOpen]

Option 1 : The Indian ground crew handed the flight crew a piece of paper

indicating the tire pressures were low, which was ignored until they were already in flight. Then the crew decided it was important, and in essence declared an emergency.

Option 2: The plane was equipped with an Tire Pressure Monitoring System, which of course has sensors in the tires. This is an optional system, not sure if this plane had it or not. In which case they would know the tire pressures on the ground , as well as in the air. So they should not have taken off with low tire pressure.

Option 3: The best looking one for Thai air. The tire pressure was perfect on the ground, and somehow in midflight developed a leak which was discovered by the Tire Pressure Monitoring System.

Edited March 17, 2013 by EyesWideOpen

[TheGhostWithin]

GJ, at last I agree with you 100%

You both read my post correctly, I assume.. this happened to the same set of tyres on two different TG flights/planes in the same day... Is this really OK, acceptable and safe?

Edited March 17, 2013 by TheGhostWithin

[rakman]

At the risk of my post being removed for wandering off-topic, I would like to know why a new 4-engine design, based on the successful A330, is deemed to be less economical than 40 year old Boeing designs. Just interested to know.

A 747-400, an updated design of about 10 or so years old, has longer range and higher passenger capacity. So the use of any aircraft in the airline inventory is more dependent on range and capacity needs for the route, not necessarily the efficiency of the other planes in the fleet.

It appears this was a "non-event" as airliners.net and avhearld.com and pprune.org haven't listed it.

[rakman]

You both read my post correctly, I assume.. this happened to the same set of tyres on two different TG flights/planes in the same day... Is this really OK, acceptable and safe?

How many cars of the same manufacturer, using the same brand of tire have blowouts. Perfectly acceptable and safe, just an odd coincidence.

[blazes]

Well, some airlines take burst tires seriously, apparently:

Incident: Novair A321 at Oslo on Mar 17th 2013, burst tyre on takeoff By Simon Hradecky, created Sunday, Mar 17th 2013 15:49Z, last updated Sunday, Mar 17th 2013 15:49ZA

Novair Airbus A321-200, registration SE-RDP performing flight 1I-193 from Oslo (Norway) to Tenerife Sur Reina Sofia,CI (Spain) with 200 passengers, burst a tyre while departing Oslo Gardermoen's runway 19L. The crew stopped the climb at FL090 and entered a hold to burn off fuel, then returned to Gardermoen Airport for a safe landing on runway 19R about 2 hours after departure.

Edited March 18, 2013 by blazes

[GentlemanJim]

Well, some airlines take burst tires seriously, apparently:

Incident: Novair A321 at Oslo on Mar 17th 2013, burst tyre on takeoff By Simon Hradecky, created Sunday, Mar 17th 2013 15:49Z, last updated Sunday, Mar 17th 2013 15:49ZA

Novair Airbus A321-200, registration SE-RDP performing flight 1I-193 from Oslo (Norway) to Tenerife Sur Reina Sofia,CI (Spain) with 200 passengers, burst a tyre while departing Oslo Gardermoen's runway 19L. The crew stopped the climb at FL090 and entered a hold to burn off fuel, then returned to Gardermoen Airport for a safe landing on runway 19R about 2 hours after departure.

Everyone would do the same. You have no idea if the tyre could have caused damage to the fuselage so they burnt off fuel and landed. If the tyre burst on LANDING, then you investigate, put another tyre on and get going again.

[Tomtomtom69]

GentlemanJim, on 16 Mar 2013 - 18:24, said:

firestar, on 16 Mar 2013 - 14:22, said:

hellodolly, on 16 Mar 2013 - 12:59, said:

use the tires past their wear out point.

Helps the company show a profit.

And you know this how?? Are you accusing them of something? If so you better have information to back it up...

Lighten up man for Gods sake!

Tomtomtom69, on 16 Mar 2013 - 14:46, said:

>>OMG I was on this flight on the 14th! OK, nothing happened then although I almost changed my flight to the flight in question! However, TG313/TG314 especially the outbound Bangkok-Kolkata sector tends to be full of Indian traders, who check-in tons of baggage not to mention bring a heap of carry-on luggage on board the aircraft. Although not likely a factor in this tire burst (particularly upon landing when the aircraft is much lighter anyway) it is worth mentioning that flights on this route are usually heavily loaded with passengers and cargo, more so than most other flights I've been on to other destinations.

When the crew take off they know what their take off weight is, they don't guess, and both the dispatch crews and the flight crews take the matter very seriously. You don't just get airborne not knowing what weight you are and what the loading data is for the aircraft. If you didn't bother and try getting airborne in a very hot climate you would run out of runway before you managed to get airborne. The weight of the cargo, it's passengers and their carry on luggage is nothing to do with the tyre bursting, if indeed it did burst, as another poster has found an alternative account of the incident. Why is it worth mentioning that in your opinion flights on the India route are loaded with more cargo/pax/hand luggage than other flights. Have you seen the load sheets for what is being carried?

I know quite a lot about aviation (my uncle having been a long-haul pilot) and obviously the pilots calculate the weight before take-off to ensure the plane can get off the ground. I am also very aware of crashes that have occurred due to being too heavy on take-off, but this is not relevant in this case. Having said that, passengers are not weighed, but instead average weights are used. When it comes to carry-on luggage, they are not weighed either and yes I am fully aware of Kolkata flights having more baggage being taken aboard than other flights because virtually everyone on the plane was a trader, there were only like 5 non-Indians on board the plane, one of which was me (referring to the outbound flight from Bangkok). The return flight was again fairly heavily loaded with cargo, but less so than the outbound sector, also there were more non-Indians on the flight since as mentioned nearly all Indians on the Kolkata-Bangkok flights are traders. I also know the ground staff there in Kolkata who told me this, so there. So yes, I am sure that they carry more than other flights as on other flights in the region including China and to Europe/Australia etc. you don't have big huge bags being carried on board by every passenger.

I just thought I would mention that as I have personal experience of flying to/from Kolkata on that flight. Clearly you haven't been on that flight so please, peace out. I know what I'm talking about. And yes, I can think of a number of conceivable reasons why the tire burst actually happened but as many other posters have already mentioned some of those reasons there's no reason for me to repeat their comments.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Tomtomtom69

[Noistar]

At the risk of my post being removed for wandering off-topic, I would like to know why a new 4-engine design, based on the successful A330, is deemed to be less economical than 40 year old Boeing designs. Just interested to know.

A 747-400, an updated design of about 10 or so years old, has longer range and higher passenger capacity. So the use of any aircraft in the airline inventory is more dependent on range and capacity needs for the route, not necessarily the efficiency of the other planes in the fleet.

It appears this was a "non-event" as airliners.net and avhearld.com and pprune.org haven't listed it.

Thanks for the clarification.

I agree with many posters - this piece of news does seem to be a non-event. Just allows a release of biased comments.

So - on that note, I've nothing to contribute, so bye from this topic

[arunsakda]

Some valid comments have been made here, however I have been dozens and dozens of TG flights and none were ever delayed for tech snags, much better than I can say for the US legacy carrier I work for. Directional control could be affected with a blown tire, but it really depends on the AC type and crosswind situation. have landed an ATR with one blown nose wheel and nothing was noticeable, we did not know until post flight inspection. On the other hand When I flew a type with brake temp monitoring this occasionally led to departure delays.

[arunsakda]

I have a question for the AViation freaks out there

When landing with a 4 wheel bogey, which brake gets the hottest?

[khaosai]

I have a question for the AViation freaks out there

When landing with a 4 wheel bogey, which brake gets the hottest?

Hi,

Generally the brakes on the downwind side will get slightly hotter. I guess it's partly due to brake cooling by convection as the upwind brakes are exposed to the wind. Next time I go flying I will have a more closer look to see how much difference it makes.

Edited March 20, 2013 by khaosai

[arunsakda]

I was asked this question at an interview and took a reasoned guess...