Aviation experts have been scratching their heads this week over a square wheel on a British Airways flight.

An A380 landed at Heathrow from Hong Kong with the misshapen tyre on its landing gear.

Nobody’s entirely sure what’s happened, but a popular theory is that it suffered a slow puncture that wasn’t helped by changes in temperature at altitude.

The Civil Aviation Authority has described the event as ‘curious’, according to the Aviation Herald.

The crew continued with the flight after a warning of a loss of tyre pressure showed up on take-off.

A Civil Aviation Authority spokesman said: ‘It is a curious one. Not seen anything like it before.’

Aviation safety expert said: ‘It is a bit mysterious, an interesting phenomenon. The deflated tyre would have been round when the aircraft touched down, it would not have rotated on four square edges as the picture would have us believe. The round wheel would have rotated on the flat ground, with the deflated tyre wobbling around the wheel.

The tyre has taken this shape after the aircraft came to a halt.

‘The aircraft weight is on the wheel – made from a well-designed light but strong aluminium alloy. You can see that the wheel is not damaged at all, as it is designed to take this weight.

‘The effect of the weight on the deflated tyre is the same as when you squeeze a rubber ring toy with different intensity, it can turn into a different shape.

‘In an A380, for this particular situation, it happens to be squarish. In a 747, for instance, the load of the aircraft does not give rise to this particular shape.’

He added: ‘The reason for the deflation could have been overheating brakes over-pressurising the tyre and making it burst – though that’s unlikely as the pilots receive a warning if the brakes are too hot – or a foreign object on the runway at Hong Kong cutting into the tyre. In all these cases pilots are well trained to handle the situation safely.’

The plane landed safely and they tyre was changed.

Source:
courtesy of METRO

by Richard Hartley

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