Federal safety officials are investigating what caused two tires of a Southwest Airlines jet to blow out at Sacramento International Airport Tuesday evening, according to The Sacramento Bee.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/28/4149025/southwest-jet-aborts-takeoff-at.html
The plane, which had 130 people onboard and was bound for Seattle, had to abort its take-off when two of its tires blew out on the runway, the newspaper reported.
The Boeing 737, which was Flight 2287, was towed from the runway. Authorities at the airport told The Sacramento Bee that they had checked the runway and didn’t anything on it that might have caused the tires to blow.
The National Safety Transportation Board will be investigating the incident, as will Southwest Airlines.
An official with the Federal Aviation Administration told The Sacramento Bee that plane-tire blowouts don’t happen too often, but that they do happen. Mechanical problems in the wheels, structural failure in the tires, runway debris and a pilot applying the brakes too hard can all lead to tire blowouts, according to the FAA official.
But the Sacramento airport seems to have had more than its share. In an incident in August 2010, four tires on a JetBlue plane coming from Long Beach, Calif., blew and the brakes went on fire, The Sacramento Bee reported. The jet had a hard landing. Passengers on that flight escaped the plane using emergency slides.
