Wheel falls off a United 777 at SFO on takeoff

[Steve Carlton]

Luckily no one was injured. Wow!

https://abc7news.com/flight-emergency-sfo-tire-falls-from-united-airlines-to-osaka-35/14500843/

[Eric Hahl]

Yikes!

[911 Rod]

This is why they don't let people do their own race track inspection!

[masraum]

I'll bet that was exciting for anyone that saw it come down. The article reiterates that the plane can land fine with a missing tire. I'm a little surprised that they went to LAX rather than going back to SFO or going on to Osaka. I'll bet it was a huge PITA for the folks on the plane. Big delay, land, get you and your luggage off and onto another plane, then take off again for what was already a long flight.

[Scott Douglas]

Edit MY error, I thought I saw where this flight originated in LAX.

[Arizona_928]

"I look up and it's a tire spinning at a rapid speed. It bounced in the staff parking lot and it bounced onto a car, a small compact car and I thought that it was going to crush that car and stay there but it actually bounced again really high, and tires still spinning and then landed on a red Tesla and completely totaled and crushed the red Tesla," said Glass.

Totaled and crushed

[Tobra]

How is this even possible?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Tobra

How is this even possible?

Welcome to the Universe where entropy reigns supreme.

Anything that involves humans means that anything can happen at any time.

In addition to that, even materials can fail in unexpected ways even if it's super rare.

[rfuerst911sc]

Righty tighty lefty loosy :�� . Either a massive failure or some kind of human error .

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by rfuerst911sc

Righty tighty lefty loosy :�� . Either a massive failure or some kind of human error .

I'm thinkin' it was the latter... time will tell.

[jhynesrockmtn]

It was most likely changed by one of the several guys I've seen with tires passing them on the race track.

[Steve Carlton]

United started buying their tires at Costco…

[Scott Douglas]

Really makes me wonder who they have working on these planes when they're on the ground.

[Noah930]

Wow. My daughter has taken that exact same flight (prob not the same plane, tho) from SFO to Osaka. I'm a bit surprised this didn't happen to her last summer, as that was the travel trip from hell. She had a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles type experience (minus John Candy) getting from LA to Japan over the course of a week.

[Steve Carlton]

I have a friend who is an airline mechanic at SFO, so it’s fun to text him and suggest he was involved with the latest mishap. He said the wheels are around 4-5’ tall and held on with one 8-10” bolt torqued to 500-600 ft/lbs. He said this has happened before.

[KNS]

Not sure about United but there are several carriers that have their heavy maintenance performed in South America. You get what you pay for.

[rfuerst911sc]

Maybe they hired the Boeing door plug installers 😋

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I have a friend who is an airline mechanic at SFO, so it’s fun to text him and suggest he was involved with the latest mishap. He said the wheels are around 4-5’ tall and held on with one 8-10” bolt torqued to 500-600 ft/lbs. He said this has happened before.

If it is true there is only one bolt, it should be even more impossible for it to happen.

For crying out loud, you just put reverse threads on the bolts that would loosen up over time, and instead they tend to tighten up. The British figured this out a hundred years ago.

[rfuerst911sc]

Military aircraft have safety wire everywhere , do civilian aircraft not use it ? If this bolt backed out safety wire would be a welcome piece of redundancy .

[Arizona_928]

Prolly a knock off bearing from China that entered the supply chain…