United 777 loses a wheel on takeoff from SFO

[Astro14]

Yet planes still crash. Not trolling but stating a fact. The best and most frequent inspections don't guaranty a trouble free flight.


By that argument, why have a fuel gauge onboard when you the check the fuel level before takeoff and know the consumption rate?

Nice strawman.

Doesn’t really work that way. Every gauge in the cockpit is there for a reason. They allow me to make decisions.

You want the TPMs gauge in the cockpit, so, you tell me what I’m gonna do differently on the basis of an under-pressure tire?

What decision do I make? based on what pressure?

When the tire cools to -65°C, what pressure do you anticipate I will see? What is normal? What should I be concerned about?

I’ll wait

 

[k1xv]

Yet planes still crash. Not trolling but stating a fact. The best and most frequent inspections don't guaranty a trouble free flight.


By that argument, why have a fuel gauge onboard when you the check the fuel level before takeoff and know the consumption rate?

There are no guarantees in life. Only improved probabilities.

 

[Astro14]

Still, such systems are available. I suppose the theoretical advantage would be the pilots would get a warning and perhaps do a flyby with the landing gear down. The ATC chatter for this flight included one pilot claiming that he didn’t see any kind of system warning.

But of course you’re right that it might just add to false alarms. I’ve dealt with an automotive TPMS that is always giving false reports and isn’t worth fixing when it’s easy enough to use a tire pressure gauge.

Since there are no tower controllers qualified to judge tire pressure from a distance of a mile away looking through binoculars at an airplane going about 150 miles an hour, I just don’t see what good the fly by does except to count the number of wheels that are attached... which in this case might be useful, except that they already knew one was missing.

I have never once considered a flyby of tower in an airliner. The one time I flew by tower in an F14, they were utterly useless. It was an unnecessary risk and a waste of fuel.

I know the TPMS system is available, I just don’t know why anybody would install it.

 

[atikovi]

I know the system is available, I just don’t know why anybody would install it.

You run over an object on take off that causes a small injury to the tire, not a blowout. But, during the 8 hour flight, the pressure drops from 200 to 20 psi by the time you land. That might be good information to know.

 

[Astro14]

You run over an object on take off that causes a small injury to the tire, not a blowout. But, during the 8 hour flight, the pressure drops from 200 to 20 psi by the time you land. That might be good information to know.

Perhaps.

How would I land differently?

Again, though, this is a strawman. The 48” tall 28 ply tires inflated to 250 psi don’t really get “small injury”.

They are not like car tires and the analogy fails.

 

[ProbeGT]

United is running their planes like I run my cars. Until the wheels fall off.

 

[Malo83]

When it rains it pours.

MSN

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

The United pilots did the right thing. Well handled.

Once you are told you lost a wheel on departure, and it’s on TV, you cannot continue flying, especially over the ocean for hours ( and passengers on board would find out ).

I am sure they were talking with flight dispatch and United maintenance about the situation, and where they preferred to have the aircraft return to. That said, the Captain has THE final say in the air.

Slightly longer runway in SFO but 25L in LAX is long enough plus it won’t cause as many airport problems temporarily shutting down the runway while they inspected the aircraft and had it towed off.

That said, if the tower told me we blew a tire on departure, unless other problems were immediately apparent , I would continue to my destination ( defending how long the runway is and if they have maintenance ). But not if the wheel came off.

No flyby also.

 

[y_p_w]

Since there are no tower controllers qualified to judge tire pressure from a distance of a mile away looking through binoculars at an airplane going about 150 miles an hour, I just don’t see what good the fly by does except to count the number of wheels that are attached... which in this case might be useful, except that they already knew one was missing.

I have never once considered a flyby of tower in an airliner. The one time I flew by tower in an F14, they were utterly useless. It was an unnecessary risk and a waste of fuel.

I know the TPMS system is available, I just don’t know why anybody would install it.

I was just thinking the whole wheel falling off. I've heard of pilots asking for a flyby for the tower to inspect whether or not a landing gear warning was correct. However, this was typically just flying directly over the runway.

 

[Owen Lucas]

That said, if the tower told me we blew a tire on departure, unless other problems were immediately apparent , I would continue to my destination ( defending how long the runway is and if they have maintenance ). But not if the wheel came off.

That makes sense but in the back of my mind I'd be wondering:

- Was this more than just a wheel falling off?
- Why did the wheel fall off, is the hub or axle loose and going to be bouncing around inside the wheel well possibly to cause additional damage? I guess you can hear if there is something wrong.
- Maybe there is foul play and we need to get to the groudn asap?

IDK, I'm just an insurance adjuster, maybe all kinds of sensors and gages can ameliorate these concerns. Is there a way to peak into the landing gear wheel well?

 

[wpod]

Lucky no one was killed.

 

[y_p_w]

That makes sense but in the back of my mind I'd be wondering:

- Was this more than just a wheel falling off?
- Why did the wheel fall off, is the hub or axle loose and going to be bouncing around inside the wheel well possibly to cause additional damage? I guess you can hear if there is something wrong.
- Maybe there is foul play and we need to get to the groudn asap?

IDK, I'm just an insurance adjuster, maybe all kinds of sensors and gages can ameliorate these concerns. Is there a way to peak into the landing gear wheel well?

A lot of newer planes have external cameras. Kind of fun when the views are made available to the passengers, but this has to be useful to the pilots if they have any doubts about damage to the wheels.

 

[Dave Hess]

One doesn’t take an airplane with potential damage across the largest ocean in the world. That is not prudent. You have the benefit of knowing that there was no other damage to the airplane from hindsight after it landed.

The crew, and United, did not have that luxury while it was in flight.

So, yeah, they jettisoned fuel on their way into LAX to reduce weight, and took the airplane to the safest, best option.

Yeah, declaring a problem and immediately heading back was the best and only option.

Luckily nobody on the ground got killed.

 

[y_p_w]

Juan Browne is pretty good at explaining this, including showing examples of the status pages.



I think this is what he was looking at:

Boeing B777 Cockpit Synoptic Displays - Avsoft Aviation Training Courses for Online Study

www.avsoft.com

 

[y_p_w]

Yeah, declaring a problem and immediately heading back was the best and only option.

Luckily nobody on the ground got killed.

They didn't immediately head back though. They actually ended turning around to go to LAX.

UA35 (UAL35) United Flight Tracking and History 07-Mar-2024 (KSFO-KLAX) - FlightAware

Track United (UA) #35 flight from San Francisco Int'l to Los Angeles Intl

www.flightaware.com

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

Probably discussing it with maintenance is my guess.

 

[Just a civilian pilot]

Juan Browne is pretty good at explaining this, including showing examples of the status pages.



I think this is what he was looking at:

Boeing B777 Cockpit Synoptic Displays - Avsoft Aviation Training Courses for Online Study

www.avsoft.com

Wasn’t aware 28L was under construction and closed in SFO.

Coming back to SFO would have basically shut the airport down temporarily.

 

[c502cid]

To be fair, I think he’s trolling.

He was claiming the aircraft in question had a system that it did not.

Then, when I called him on his false statement, he wanted to argue. I reckon that’s trolling, arguing for arguments sake.

Look, tire pressure monitoring systems were mandated because of people that owned Ford explorers, never checked the tires, had blowouts, and got killed in the rollover.

The problem with adding a new system to an airplane, is that it is expensive, and if the system does not work, then the airplane does not go.

There’s plenty of monitoring, testing, and inspection done on aircraft parts as it is. I don’t see the value of tire pressure monitoring in an airliner, when the pressures are checked every flight.

Flight crew visual for sure, but checked with an instrument of some kind? I've been on enough quick turns to wonder if anything besides fuel and catering is done.

 

[loneryder]

The wheel apparently landed in a parking lot and damaged a bunch of cars. But the plane made an emergency landing at LAX.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfo-united-plane-tire-18711283.php

A United Airlines flight headed to Japan lost a portion of a tire during takeoff, San Francisco International Airport spokespersons said Thursday.​

​

At approximately 11:35 a.m., a piece of a landing gear tire fell off United Flight 35 which was departing to Osaka, spokespersons said. The tire debris landed in an on-airport employee parking lot during takeoff.​

A planespotter was caputuring video at the time and it's visible right at 45 seconds in.

Well there was another Boeing air liner that had one wings wheels collapse on landing. What is going on at Boeing??

 

[loneryder]

Question: Why can't you land without dumping all that fuel? My GF lives within a mile as the crow flies to Dulles. Regularly we go outside and smell kerosene. If it's humid or foggy, it really strong. I've always wondered why all the dumping in a populated area.