Tire falls off United plane after takeoff from SFO | Hacker News Reader

Tire falls off United plane after takeoff from SFO

nbcbayarea.com

43 pointsdrawkward36 comments

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tire from the Boeing 777-200 came off the rear landing gear

Well, at least it wasn’t the front that fell off.

For the uninitiated: https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM

Wouldn't be a big deal anyway because planes aren't in the environment.

Not since we moved them outside the environment a couple decades ago—that jet fuel too.

That’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.

Well, how was it un-typical?

Why divert to LAX instead of going back to SFO? Is it just a scheduling thing, e.g., it would take longer to get a replacement plane to continue the flight from SFO than it would to fly to LAX and get a replacement there?

A plane heading to Japan from SFO would be carrying quite a bit of fuel. It's possible / likely that the takeoff weight would exceed the safe landing weight, requiring circling to burn off fuel or dumping fuel. If they have to get rid of fuel anyway, it might make sense to continue to another airport where they could get a replacement aircraft.

In addition to that, SFO is already down a runway which is causing some delays because planes need to go around the construction zones. An airplane with a potentially damaged landing gear can close all of the remaining runways due to the cross layout that SFO uses. LAX is laid out a little differently, so you aren't risking having the whole airport close for a while if something does go wrong.

When combined with the need to burn off some of the fuel, LAX seems like a sensible choice. You don't need to travel over any particularly tall terrain, LAX is large and should have sufficient runways for an airplane that might have trouble coming to a stop quickly. Since there was no issue with actual in-flight operation of the airplane, it's also not a 'land right the frak now' situation.

Is SFO a maintenance hub? That could be another variable, if the repair facilities in LAX are better.

And then there’s a potential bias against SFO, given they just let an airplane take off that HAD A WHEEL FALL OFF. Maybe they aren’t the best party to examine the plane just now.

United Airlines has its main maintenance hub at SFO, and smaller ones at several other airports including LAX.

https://www.mroglobal-online.com/companies/united-technical/

Holy fuck. I was on board this exact airplane just two days ago.

That flight, or that plane?

After takeoff it’s just useless extra weight - why not jettison it?

Just like disabling debug messages in production releases. ;)

You have to be able to land

Where’s your “build the airplane on the way down” spirit?

Agile

News you love to see when you're flying out of SFO in a couple weeks.

SFO is where United’s main maintenance facility is, so statistically I would think this is where the most issues will occur

It should be, because air incidents are not independent events. It will now be even more unlikely for something to go wrong with your flight.

There's probably 1000 major aviation incidents each year, every year, for many decades. We're submitting Hacker News articles on every one now? Why? We never did before.

"Major" is sufficient to remove an aircraft from service.

Globally:

    According to ACRO, recent years have been considerably safer for aviation, with fewer than 170 incidents every year between 2009 and 2017, compared to as many as 226 as recently as 1998. {1}

Tires falling off of a passenger plane isn't "major", nor is it common - it's a rare occcurence, one that should never happen, and something that has the potential to cost lives.

Why are reports being submitted now?

It's only recently become common knowledge that various aircraft companies that were once the pinnacle of safety practices (eg: Boeing) are now relatively rotten to the core and troubled with cost cutting practices and a lack of safety culture.

{1} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_accidents_and_inciden...

{2} https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/

[dupe]

More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39635232

Yikes, Boeing!

This could be a maintenance issue.

Not a counter, but who is responsible for maintenance?

I ask assuming Boeing issues are the new "derailments".

In this case United Airlines is.

https://www.unitedtechops.com is who does the work, but United is responsible for it as the operator of the aircraft.

The operator (United).

Indicates their tireless commitment to air safety!

groan

You okay?

This was a 777; those planes aren't in production any more, so this plane is probably at least 10 years old I'm guessing. This isn't a factory or design issue, this is a maintenance issue, and that falls on the airline, United.

This is the problem with govt picked winners and monopolies. It's the worst of big govt combined with the worst of chrony capitalism.

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