"Virgin Blue wheel 'disintergrated' on landing"

[Gerard M]

AIRCRAFT engineers have demanded Virgin Blue inspect its entire plane fleet after reports that a wheel disintegrated on a plane as it landed at Melbourne Airport this morning.
The airline has not yet confirmed the incident, which Steve Purvinas, federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, said was extremely dangerous.
Mr Purvinas said the wheel on the 737-800 aircraft disintegrated as it landed at Melbourne at 9am this morning. The plane departed from Adelaide.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/virgin-blue-wheel-disintegrated-on-landing-20091020-h6ib.html

[Marty H]

This will be interesting to see the cause.

[Raymond Rowe]

Should make for some interesting reading.

[Gerard M]

Ah the usual intellectually stimulating articles that are read on the internet from out friends the media. just subtracted the word qantas here and there and added Virgin Blue instead.:rolleyes:

[Lukas M]

who cares about what media reporting who, qantas accident or not, you people need to get over that crap. Its a serious incident and just think what could happen if it fell off whilst rolling.

I dont think this is the first time either for one of their 737's.

[Steve B.]

According to later reports this evening, the wheel did not disintegrate. The hub suffered a wheel bearing failure. This is not as serious a failure, and is far more far more benign than the reported wheel disintegration.

If Steve Purvinas, federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association is as careful with his aircraft maintenance as he with his assumptions of the incident then God help us all.

[Craig Murray]

Another classic quote from the federal secretary of the ALAEA in the following article:

Wheel of Virgin Blue plane disintegrated on landing
(http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26236726-29277,00.html)

"It could have led to loss of life if the wheel had come through the fuselage causing the cabin to de-pressurise rapidly."

Wheels fall upwards?!

The ATSB will conduct an investigation and the results will be made public. This is a good thing and I have no doubt that air travel in Australia is safer than it ever has been.

Let the media have their fun with this, frankly most media outlets in this country have alot to answer for when it comes to credible reporting of news minus sensationalism. Remember, headlines sell....... facts, well they get buried in the text.

The headline on the above article could just as easily been written "ATSB to investigate 737 wheel hub failure" but I doubt it would generate too many hits :)

[Greg McDonald]

Latest report has Virgin Blue looking at taking legal action against Mr Purvinas due to his comments...

[Nathan Long]

...facts, well they get buried in the text...

Even then, they're quite rare...

[Brenden S]

It was interesting to see the photo on the news tonight. It appears that a massive failure of the wheel hub assembly has occurred, similar to the nose wheel incident not that long ago. Personally from the picture shown on the news, it appears that there was a stress crack around the wheel bearing, or due to corrosion. A crack would have came from the corrosion or from a sharp edge, which there is none on a wheel. It is very common to have wheels cracked, however that is only picked up in the wheel bay when the wheels get NDT (non destructive testing) using dye penetrate.

[Sarah C]

Latest report has Virgin Blue looking at taking legal action against Mr Purvinas due to his comments...

Good on em.......it if there is a problem, let the airline deal with it themselves. I am sure they are taking the incident seriously and are investigating it before jumping to conclusions.

There is no story if there is no quote from either the airline, a passenger or a union rep.

[Ash W]

There is no story if there is no quote from either the airline, a passenger or a union rep.

Yep and someone with a self interest barrow to push.

[Philip Argy]

If someone has a complaint to make against Mr Purvinas for unprofessional conduct I suggest that the right place to take it is to Engineers Australia: http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/about-us/complaints-against-members/complaints-against-members_home.cfm

[Steve S... 2]

The aircraft was VH-VUI and I don't believe this aircraft is all that old!

Was the recent nosewheel incident with VH-VBA at Melbourne anything similar to this one?