What Is It With Regional Jet Tires Lately?

There were two more incidents this week involving blown tires on regional jets during takeoff, this time involving aircraft flying for US Airways and regional operator Republic Airways. One plane aborted its takeoff, while the second made a precautionary landing in Washington, DC.

An Embraer 170 (file photo of type, above) operating as US Airways Express Flight 3343, from Albany International (ALB) to Ronald Reagan National (DCA), had a tire on its left maingear blow out as the aircraft was on its takeoff roll. The pilots felt a vibration as they were preparing to rotate, and chose to abort the takeoff, according to ALB spokesman airport spokesman Doug Myers.

The plane came to rest about 1,000 feet from the end of the runway, blowing out a second tire during the heavy braking. None of the 76 persons onboard the plane were injured.

Just as with incidents involving Embraer 145s earlier this month, tire woes on regional jets seem lately to be coming in twos... as was the case with a second Republic Airways EMB-170 that suffered a blown maingear tire as it departed Reagan National bound for Dallas Tuesday night, less than 24 hours before the incident in Albany.

US Airways Flight 3337, with 68 people onboard, made an emergency landing at Washington Dulles at about 11:00 pm   Tuesday night. Again, no one was injured.

Investigators are now scrambling to determine what led to the unrelated tire failures. Ground crews in Albany swept the runway, but found no foreign object debris that could have cause a tire to blow. Investigators in Washington are also inspecting the tires on the EMB-170 involved in the earlier incident.

It's important to note that tire failure on a commercial aircraft during takeoff or landing is not usually a major problem, as flight crews are trained to compensate for how the loss of a tire affects the ground stability of the aircraft.

However, such failures occasionally lead to far greater problems -- as evidenced by the 2000 Concorde tragedy in Paris, which began when one of the aircraft's maingear tires blew out after striking FOD left by a departing aircraft on the runway.

Pieces of that tire struck the wing, tearing through to the fuel tank and hydraulic lines in the wing... and leading to the loss of 109 passengers onboard the plane, and four people on the ground.

FMI: www.usairways.com