Brits flying home for Christmas had a fright when a wheel fell off a holiday jet while it was landing and then rolled past the cockpit as the two pilots watched in horror, a report has revealed.
The TUI airliner had just touched down at Manchester airport after an otherwise ‘uneventful’ Christmas Eve flight from Agadir in Morrocco.
The plane landed at around 200mph when a bearing failure led to its right outer rear wheel coming off its axle.
The wheel carried on rolling down the runway and overtook the cockpit on the right side as the Boeing 737-800 slowed to 70mph.
Images from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch report show the extent of the damage to the wheel
The TUI airliner (file photo) had just touched down at Manchester airport after an otherwise ‘uneventful’ Christmas Eve flight from Agadir in Morrocco when the wheel fell off
The pilots spotted the wheel and immediately slowed down to 11mph as they steered their plane safely on to a nearby taxiway.
A report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch said that fire crews rushed to help and informed the pilots that their right outboard wheel had fallen off.
The 181 passengers and six crew disembarked on the taxiway and were taken to the terminal by bus.
Nobody was injured in the dramatic incident just before 1am on Christmas Eve last year.
The report revealed that the wheel – one of four on the rear undercarriage – fell off around 1,300 yards down the 3,300 yard runway.
It then rolled on its own for 765 yards at ‘high speed’ before coming to a rest on the grass at the side.
The report said: ‘The pilots reported no handling abnormalities other than a slight judder as the aircraft vacated the runway.’
An inspection carried out immediately after the landing found metallic debris from the wheel hub, bearings and brake pack ‘strewn along the runway’.
The report revealed that the wheel – one of four on the rear undercarriage – fell off around 1,300 yards down the 3,300 yard runway (pictured here: Inspecting the damage)
Experts found the wheel,once detached from its bearings (pictured), rolled on its own for 765 yards at ‘high speed’ before coming to a rest on the grass at the side
The dramatic incident followed what was described as ‘an uneventful flight’ from Al Massira airport in Morocco.
The report said: ‘The wheel separated as a result of a failure of the inboard wheel bearing which led to the failure of the outer bearing.
‘The exact cause of the initial failure to the inboard bearing could not be determined.’
Maintenance records showed that the wheel had been overhauled and fitted to the seven-year-old aircraft a month earlier.
The engineer responsible insisted there was ‘nothing abnormal’ about the task and that the bearings had been properly fitted and greased.
But tests on January 8 revealed that the torque wrench which had been used to tighten the nut on the bearings was found to be under-reading by up to 12%.
It meant that the nut might only have been tightened to a pressure of 8,600lbs which was 97.5% of the required minimum force.
Investigators said that the ‘relatively small reduction in force’ was ‘not considered sufficient on its own to have caused the bearing to fail.’
The report also found that the aircraft had not been subject to any heavy landings which could have caused the incident.
The severity of the damage to the components made it impossible to say if the failure was caused by excessive moisture in the grease or debris such as grit or dust getting into the assembly.
The report concluded: ‘Bearing failure investigations such as this are often inconclusive due to the severity of the material damage within the bearing destroying evidence of the initiation.
‘Therefore, it was not possible to determine the cause of the bearing failure, or to discount the possibility that there was a pre-existing fault, or the bearing had become damaged as a result of the ingress of debris or moisture.
‘It is possible that preload torque applied was slightly below the minimum required; however, it was still considered enough to ensure that the bearing assembly was correctly seated and makes it unlikely to have affected the bearing running condition.
‘However, a combination of the possible causes set out in this report cannot be ruled out.’
The report revealed that a wheel bearing on another Boeing 737-800 jet operated by TUI was found to have failed in pre-flight checks on February 15 this year.
As a result, a ‘component failure investigation’ is being carried out to see if there is ‘a common cause for both failures’, the report said.
A TUI UK spokesperson said: ‘The aircraft had a normal landing, however suffered a bearing failure shortly after.
‘All customers and crew disembarked safely. The event was reported in line with the regulatory authorities, and the CAA closed the case with no further action.
‘We’d like to reassure customers that our aircraft meet exceptionally high health and safety standards. Incidents like these are incredibly rare.
‘The health and safety of customers and crew remains our absolute highest priority’