Airbus A340-300 C-FYKX

Summary

On 18 August 2003 at about 13:16 local time, a Airbus A340-300 registered C-FYKX was involved in an incident near Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. 185 people were on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was slightly damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

18 August 2003 at 13:16

Classification

Incident

Location

Honolulu, Hawaii, United States

Nearest airport

Honolulu International (HNL)

Coordinates

21.3186, -157.9225

Aircraft

Airbus A340-300

Registration

C-FYKX

Category

Airplane

Engines

4

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 129: Foreign

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Honolulu → Sydney

Aircraft damage

Minor

Weather

VMC

Light

Night

NTSB number

LAX03IA259

Nobody was injured.

the failure of the center landing gear tires as a result of low tire pressure.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

Both of the transport airplane's center landing gear tires (#'s 9 and 10) shredded during takeoff roll, damaging the door retraction arms and multiple fuselage skin panels. The flight crew could not retract the landing gear and elected to return to the departure airport and performed an uneventful overweight landing. Examination of the tire debris revealed there was significant inter ply tearing of the tires, suggesting the tire did not fail as a result of a cap failure. According to the operator and tire manufacturer, the failure signatures were consistent with a rapid and violent event, which can be attributed either to foreign object damage (FOD) or a low tire pressure situation. Since the #10 tire exhibited high heat signatures, the likely sequence is that the #9 wheel tire failed first, followed by the overheating of the #10 tire and its subsequent failure. The fact that no FOD was recovered with the tire debris and the fact that the nose tires did not sustain any damage, considering their in-line position with the center landing gear, lends more credence to the low tire pressure situation. The airplane underwent a regularly scheduled service check, which included a tire condition and pressure check, approximately 30 hours prior to the event. The tire pressure was not documented during the service check. A post-incident examination revealed the #9 wheel had a leaking fuse plug. The fuse plug was tested and found to have a 6-psi leak over a 12-hour time period. The pre-incident tire pressure was unknown.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.