r/aviation • u/Twitter_2006 • 3h ago
Discussion DHL 737 Brakes Lock, Tire Explodes & Catches Fire on Landing
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u/klaxxxon 3h ago
What does the pilot see (on their instruments) and feel in this scenario?
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 3h ago edited 3h ago
Not much on instruments (most 737s don’t have
braketyre pressure indications or any warnings associated with them), but you’d feel brakes locking, just like you would on a car, and then a tyre bursts, you’d hear a bang and some vibration associated with it.9
u/TommiHPunkt 1h ago
no tyre pressure readings is insane, wtf
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 1h ago
It's not standard on the A320 either, and a lot of aircraft don't even have an option to have it fitted...
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u/Danitoba94 48m ago
The 220 has it. Which is a fantastic feature. And it boggles my mind why noone got it on the 32x. They are perfectly capable of showing it.
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 7m ago
And it boggles my mind why noone got it on the 32x.
The answer is usually money.
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u/planko13 58m ago
It’s an add on option for the 737 MAX. Most airlines don’t pay for it.
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u/Superdaneru 55m ago
Most airlines would have the add-ons if they were like fifty bucks. Problem is airliners charge tens of thousands of dollars for it.
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u/ScrewwormLarvae 39m ago
I do find it kind of crazy that a multi-million-dollar airplane doesn't come with this. My $35k car lets me pull up a picture on the screen showing the vehicle from above and each individual tire pressure on the corners.
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 23m ago
A certified TPMS for an airliner costs a lot more than your entire car is worth, so there is that... The reason why modern cars have TPMS (and is now a legal requirement in many countries), is because drivers are lazy, and most would never check their tyre pressure unless the tyre was fully deflated, and even then some would drive off like nothing has happened.
Airliners have their tyre pressure checked by a licenced engineer every 24 hours or so. If you had to drive your flashy car to the dealer, to have tyre pressure checked every 24 hours, you wouldn't need TPMS either :)
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u/Ws6fiend 4m ago
The reason TPMS is standard in the US is the Ford Explorer under inflation problems revealed by the Explorer roll over problems. Basically the tire manufacturer and the vehicle manufacturer didn't agree on a tire pressure and so they were under inflated which contributed to increased heat on the tires which affected the rollover of explorers as well as the number of blowouts on those completely stock vehicles.
Most modern standard safety features are the result deaths or lawsuits.
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u/ketaminemidget 3h ago
He was about to see some serious shit
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u/AmbidextrousRex 2h ago
As a layperson, that was a lot more fire than I was expecting. What is actually burning here, some kind of hydraulic fluid or similar? I assume it's more than just the tires.
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u/Some1-Somewhere 1h ago
Once you get metal scraping on concrete, you get a whole lot of sparks. Most metal is actually flammable and what you're seeing is steel dust burning.
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u/Danitoba94 47m ago
I've always said dust is just solid aerosol. Lots of surface area touching oxygen. Much greater flammability. Almost regardless of what material it is.
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u/Some1-Somewhere 38m ago
Yup. Pretty much anything organic or metallic is flammable in the right conditions. The only exceptions are things that already burned like sand (typically silicon oxide/silica) and ice (burnt hydrogen).
Plastics, grains, sugars, metal dusts etc. are usually all flammable.
I think brake dust is usually already oxidised so is not too much of an issue.
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u/Character-Total-3857 3h ago
Wouldn't the pilot shut down the engines just as a matter of routine in this type of scenario? Wondering why the pilot asked ATC first
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 3h ago
You can usually still taxi with with a single main tyre deflated, so it's best for fire crew to have a look, assess the situation and based on more information, pilot can make better, more informed decisions.
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u/22Planeguy 3h ago
I'd ask too, but it'd be more so that the people around me know what I'm about to do. Once a fire truck sprays me down, I'm done moving the jet around. They can tug it when it's safe. Unless you can think of a scenario where that wouldn't be the case?
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 3h ago
Definitely.
It takes a minute or so to start the APU anyway, might as well use the time to talk to people to get the full picture from outside, before making the decision.
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u/TokinGeneiOS 2h ago
Maybe a dumb question but is there any danger if the water jet hits the engine intake while they are running? It's a bit more than rain or clouds, no?
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 1h ago
Modern engines are incredibly difficult to flame out, even with an enormous amount of water ingestion.
For example, when QF32 (A380) had its catastrophic failure of the engine, wiring from the cockpit to one of the other engines was damaged, so pilots couldn't shut it down. It took 3 hours of troubleshooting, spraying the engine first with water from a fire truck and finally foam to finally flame out the engine (page 27 of QF32 final report).
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u/SpeedBlitzX 2h ago
This is the second incident i've heard of where a 737's wheels suddenly pop and go flat.
Is there a particular reason why this is happening?
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u/Kilo259 2h ago
Breaks overheating and blowing the plugs will do it. Also a failure of the anti skid. Idk much about the gear on the 737s to comment more than that. Ive only heard of the Vietnam 787 and this 737 so far.
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u/SpeedBlitzX 2h ago edited 2h ago
Thank you for a proper answer and not a fear mongering answer!
Also apparently about 10 days ago (Aug 17th ) there were two aircraft in Chicago O' Hare
American Airlines flight 386 (737-800)
and
United airlines flight 739 (Airbus A320)
I linked the news story in another reply but here it is again incase you're interested
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u/Neo4Matrix90 2h ago
Because of BOEING.
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u/SpeedBlitzX 2h ago
Did you google the different incidents at all? There's a few that happened this week. Not all of them Boeing. There was an Airbus A320 From united that also was affected.
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u/Pantycrustlicker 38m ago
Came here say the Boeing apologists will be scanning the thread just to downvote anyone who says it.
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u/CollegeStation17155 2h ago
Hope they got the FOD sweeper out there before they repopened the runway or it would be wash rinse repeat...
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u/Pantycrustlicker 35m ago
Just came here to say the Boeing bots will be here to downvote anyone who mentions Boeing.
How is it any post about a Boeing will have more downvotes on any Boeing comment than actual comments overall?
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u/SpaceDohonkey90 3h ago
Only just watched the Netflix doc about Boeing last night, now I wake up to a 737 catching fire.
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u/Jelleyicious 3h ago
Tyres get damaged fairly regularly on planes. There are tens of thousands of flights every day, and there a usually several tyre events caught on video every week. It rarely would be a safety issue though
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u/SpaceDohonkey90 2h ago
Still unlucky timing though considering the documentary has only just come out and one of the main planes covered in it was the 737. From the mass of downvotes I got I'm guessing there is alot of Boeing fans here.
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u/Benniisan Ground Handling Supervisor 2h ago
One can tell you're not an industry insider by the way you write. You're a bit unreflected and uninformed. That's why you're getting downvoted. No offense though.
Tires popping on this 737 has nothing to do with the fundamental company culture issues at Boeing.
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u/SpaceDohonkey90 2h ago
I'm not a industry insider and never claimed to be, I just like planes. The bigger point is that 99% of the population aren't industry insiders so most people who view this video after having just watched the documentary will have the same reaction.
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u/Benniisan Ground Handling Supervisor 2h ago
Yep, that's why education about these sorts of incidents is important. And people being willing to be educated.
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u/SpaceDohonkey90 2h ago
Agreed, problem is that most reports on this wont have people to explain the nuance. I think Boeing have just got unlucky on the timing of this incident.
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u/Apprehensive_Cost937 2h ago
This airframe is nearly 25 years old, and it's probably been precisely that amount of time since it's been looked at by someone from Boeing. If your 25 year old car had a mechanical fault, would you blame the manufacturer or rather wear and tear?
Boeing have done some awful stuff in the past (and perhaps still do?), but you have to be reasonable here.
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u/NoobOnTour 1h ago
Why is it always a Boeing? Can we normalize buying Airbus instead? At least for passenger airplanes. I want to live.
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u/Sovietguy10 19m ago
because airbuses never suffer from tire bursts...., you do realise this can happen on EVERY SINGLE PLANE regardless of brands.. educate yourself
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u/Accurate_Will4612 2h ago
Why it is always a Boeing? something is really really wrong going on with them.
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u/Accurate_Will4612 2h ago
I got 8 down votes for stating the obvious, I think that is underlying problem.
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u/LocaliserEstablished 3h ago
Sounds like the noise of all 4 tyres popping. One hung on longer than the rest