The video shows that the tire didn't come apart. It looks like the wheel came off with the tire attached. For just the tire to fall off whole, lots of bolts holding the two-piece rims together would have to not be bolted, and half the rim would come off, anyway, vs. one big nut holding the wheel to the hub.<p>Still, hard to believe either way: The wheel nut should have something like 250nm of torque, and it has a locking device, and swapping a wheel is a two-man job.
Obviously many eyes will be on Boeing given recent history but I don't know that there's a particular reason to suspect them. In this case I'd look first at possible maintenance issues on United's end, or possibly a manufacturing issue with the wheel/tire.
I'm curious what the pilot's experience was like. Do I get a notification right away that a wheel fell off or was it a radio call from air traffic control? While I'm in flight, do I have a little camera or something where I can see the wheels? Because there's no way to actually go look at them when they're tucked away and you're flying, right? In other words how did they determine that they should still attempt a normal landing (I guess there aren't really any better other options though, are there?)
takeoff around 11:24am: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haRC034bj-g" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haRC034bj-g</a><p>landing around 1:17pm: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkdKhZSZiSM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkdKhZSZiSM</a><p>towed to the gate about 10min after landing<p>you'll have to scrub because the streams are still live and I don't know how to timestamp a live stream
I did a Boeing factory tour back in the day.<p>At the end of the tour they made everyone say “I ain’t going, if it’s not Boeing” as a way to celebrate their superior plane.<p>Ironically the mantra now is<p>“If it’s Boeing, it ain’t going”<p>Oh how times have changed.
Boeing shares seem unaffected by this event.<p>Poor Boeing, this is what happens when you lose your “soul” as a company and you start chasing margins, profit, dividends and you don’t pay attention to you people and your product.<p>Have seen it happening in many big companies, and I don’t understand why intelligent/educated/competent CEOs don’t see this :-(
Great piece on Boeing from Last Week Tonight. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc</a>
i'm wondering what platform could presently take twitter's place for publishing news like this? twitter gets a lot of flak here for political reasons. but it seems it nonetheless serves a societal purpose.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc</a><p>Profit over all else, capitalism!
I mean,the plane still worked. Props to Boeing for making flying jalopies that fall apart, but not fatally.<p>That is capitalism at work! You want planes with wheels that don't fall off? Buy an Airbus built by those communist Belgians. Just be prepared for your lower stock yields.
One thing I won't ever understand is why we allow large airports to be located in a way that puts <i>any</i> kind of infrastructure, be it residential, commercial, transportation or recreational, under the flight path for critical phases (i.e. start/land). Right where I used to work there's a memorial placard for a plane that crashed in 1960 due to an engine failure [1], and maybe five minutes worth of walking from where I grew up is another memorial for a plane that failed to start, crashed into a house and led to the deaths of, among others, a significant number of players of the ManU squad [2].<p>There have been so many incidents and near-incidents that it should be a no-brainer, but eh, guess it's more important to have airports closer to (or even worse, <i>inside</i>) cities. Yes, yes, I know, airplane travel is one of the safest modes of transportation there is, but still, a dominant majority of accidents in commercial aviation happens during landing and takeoff [3]. GA is a bit different because it seems that a lot of GA pilots fuck up maneuvering [4], but still, takeoff and landing account for about half the incidents.<p>[1] <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flugzeugungl%C3%BCck_am_17._Dezember_1960_in_M%C3%BCnchen" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flugzeugungl%C3%BCck_am_17._De...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_air_disaster" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_air_disaster</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/31529/most-airplane-accidents-happen-during-landing/" rel="nofollow">https://www.statista.com/chart/31529/most-airplane-accidents...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://www.redbirdflight.com/landing/general-aviation-accidents-maneuvering-flight" rel="nofollow">https://www.redbirdflight.com/landing/general-aviation-accid...</a>