Yet another airline mishap. Wheel falls off of plane in San Francisco. Damages cars.

W

WhatInThe

Well-known Member
Yet another airline mishap when a wheel falls off a United Airlines flight during takeoff hitting some cars below.

Tire falls off United plane after takeoff from SFO, damages cars in parking lot

What I find amazing and troubling at the sametime each incident seems to involves something different. To me it seems like poor preflight inspections or poor maintenance inspections when mechanics have the plane for other repairs.
 

I get a flat on landing, but a wheel just falling off, bouncing and rolling at 200 mph. Wows'a !
 

Maybe the bolts sheared off and it isn't due to a person's
lack of proficiency!

There was a case here a few months ago, where cheaper
non-spec nuts and bolts were found being used, put
there during a service, these nuts and bolts were made
from the wrong strength of steel and would break easily.

Wait for the results of the enquiry, don't speculate, please.

Mike.
 
Don't forget the various cases of product counterfeiting. It's not only drugs but meanwhile nearly all articles. The companies want to save money and often use cheaper spare parts from unknown sources. This is a problem for decades. But now this seems to happen too frequently.
 
Well, this incident is certainly an oddity. Wheels are supposed to be checked after each landing for wear, cracks, etc. If this wheel was just changed, someone didnā€™t tighten the center wheel nut to its specifications. Those wheel nuts do not come loose on their own.

This will be another job for the NTSB to figure out, but whoever signed off on the wheel will have questions to answer.
 
Yikes! A friend is a flight attendant with United,based out of San Francisco. She only works International flights. Wonder if she worked that flight.....Our daughter just spent the weekend with her and her husband and several other couples on Catalina. Too early to ask my daughter but I`ll ask her later if that was could have been C`s flight....
 
I have been in that airport several times. That is scary. Just think of the damage those wheels can cause!

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oldman said:
Well, this incident is certainly an oddity. Wheels are supposed to be checked after each landing for wear, cracks, etc. If this wheel was just changed, someone didnā€™t tighten the center wheel nut to its specifications. Those wheel nuts do not come loose on their own.

This will be another job for the NTSB to figure out, but whoever signed off on the wheel will have questions to answer.
Click to expand...
oldman, didn't you fly for United?

I read the article and watched the videos available online. I was thinking (like the cop in me) that suppose whoever put the wheel on the plane left it loose intentionally. Is there also a criminal investigation performed by the NTSB?

We all know that we do have doctors performing surgery that probably shouldn't even being operating on dogs and they are called out for any surgery they screw up and sometimes some of those screwed up surgeries end up being reported as criminal acts.

I would hate to think or find out that we have airplane mechanics that knowing mess up the mechanical issues on an airplane, but again, I suppose anything is possible.
 
We seem to be having a lot of airline problems recently, donā€™t we ? There was also a scary video of a plane leaving Houston Airport and one of the engines caught fire.
It was at night and all the video showed was lots of flames outside of the airplane. They were over the Gulf of Mexico when the fire happened, and were able to turn around and land back in Houston with no problems.

Last week, we had another one of those small aircraft landing on the freeway, near Nashville, this time. Their motor quit and they crash landed, killing all onboard.
And there was also a helicopter in Hawaii that went down this week when the engine quit, too, but he was able to land on the beach and everyone survived that crash.
Way too many of these plane crashes happening !
 
Brutal flight schedules with little down time for inspection or maintenance are a factor as well. Brings to mind an old racing adage, "drive it till the wheels fall off. . . " now seen in a more dangerous vein by the flying public.

Big difference between the present 'de-regulation' era and the by-gone days of FAA flight regulation.
 
Another plane just had a landing mishap ! Coming in for landing, the landing gear collapsed on this passenger plane. Everyone had to be evacuated with the emergency landing measures, and the people are fine. It almost seems like something is happening at least every week with planes now, not crashes, just serious malfunctions like this, that could be deadly.

IMG_6161.jpeg
 
I just heard about today's "incident" a little while ago. I wonder if it's actually so much worse now, or if it's always been like that and being highlighted in the news more now? I know it was that way with the train derailments last fall... šŸ›¤ļø they've always been happening all over, but suddenly there was a big one and all the smaller ones were also highlighted. Same for planes now, ya think? āœˆļø
 
911 said:
oldman, didn't you fly for United?

I read the article and watched the videos available online. I was thinking (like the cop in me) that suppose whoever put the wheel on the plane left it loose intentionally. Is there also a criminal investigation performed by the NTSB?

We all know that we do have doctors performing surgery that probably shouldn't even being operating on dogs and they are called out for any surgery they screw up and sometimes some of those screwed up surgeries end up being reported as criminal acts.

I would hate to think or find out that we have airplane mechanics that knowing mess up the mechanical issues on an airplane, but again, I suppose anything is possible.
Click to expand...
Yes, I flew for United and like I have stated many times on this forum, I did a complete walk around of my plane before takeoff.

The NTSB will do a complete investigation and if any criminal negligence is found, they will handle it. I seriously doubt if anyone would purposely not tighten the wheel. It could have been done between shifts where the one shift put the wheel onto the hub or bogey, but then never tightened the center bolt. These tires weigh about 200+ pounds each, not including the wheel. They are filled with nitrogen gas.

I have had nose tires blow out on landing, but never had a wheel and tire fall off. The Triple Seven is a big plane. The wheels are mounted on what is called a bogey. They are dynamically engineered to withstand the loss of a tire if one should blow out, or as in this case, fall off and still be able to balance the plane perfectly for a safe landing or takeoff. Losing a wheel puts no one in danger, except if it should strike an individual.

Keep in mind that the plane made a very safe landing at LAX.
 
There seems to be too many Boeing Planes, suffering from
various defects, all different, could they be sabotage, or a
drop in quality control, of the output, I wonder.

Boeing, have always been a great company that makes very
good planes, they surely don't suddenly stop doing a proper
job.

It is a sad situation.

Mike.
 


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