Virgin Blue wheel 'disintegrated' on landing

[Dave Noble]

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

Full article at Virgin Blue wheel 'disintegrated' on landing

 

[Mal]

Whenever "Steve Purvinas" rears his head in news articles, you can tell the union is battling something they see as a misjustice to them. And sure enough:

He said today's incident came two days before Virgin Blue intended to roll out a new maintenance system that would extend the period between weekly aircraft inspections to 15 days.

I'll be waiting for the ATSB take on the incident - not his and his union based agenda.

 

[Dave Noble]

Be v interesting concept to do weekly inspections every 15 days

Dave

 

[straitman]

Be v interesting concept to do weekly inspections every 15 days

Dave

Easy.

Just change the name.

Don't get me wrong here as I'm not defending or condemning VB but any change such as this would be related to the practice of other carriers and would need to be proven to and then approved by CASA.) & possibly the FAA)

 

[Slats7]

Why isn't this story on no news yet? Oh yeah it's not Qantas.

 

[Mal]

Why isn't this story on no news yet? Oh yeah it's not Qantas.

Nah it's there - same AAP source:

Wheel of Virgin Blue plane disintegrated on landing | The Australian

 

[Slats7]

Nah it's there - same AAP source:

Wheel of Virgin Blue plane disintegrated on landing | The Australian

It's not on news.com.au aka no news.

 

[BlueAU]

Gosh I wonder what that landing would have felt like as a PAX ! :shock:

 

[Mal]

Interesting comments from Virgin Blue:

Virgin Blue backs maintenance amid broken wheel probe | The Australian

"Mr Purvinas' statements that a wheel on a Virgin Blue 737-800 aircraft had disintegrated on landing this morning at Melbourne Airport are simply not true," he said in a statement.

"His statement that Virgin Blue is preparing to do less regular maintenance checks is again simply not true."

The company had sought legal advice about Mr Purvinas' comments, he said.

The aircraft had not lost a wheel or any other component, and was able to taxi normally with some additional drag on the front wheel, he said.

 

[Justinf]

Does anyone else find the word 'disintergrated' gross hyperbole? Disintergrated means it basically vanished into thin air. It certainly didn't do that.

 

[pauly7]

Its pretty clear that in the lead up to their fight with DJ over wages/contracts etc the engineers are going to do what they did to QF and put pressure on them by ringing the media with every tea cup spilt.

They will also use the threat of action over Xmas against DJ....

 

[samh004]

Its pretty clear that in the lead up to their fight with DJ over wages/contracts etc the engineers are going to do what they did to QF and put pressure on them by ringing the media with every tea cup spilt.

Fact is, the spokesperson committed libel. I hope DJ go after him. Surprised QF didn't at some point.

 

[Standby]

Its pretty clear that in the lead up to their fight with DJ over wages/contracts etc the engineers are going to do what they did to QF and put pressure on them by ringing the media with every tea cup spilt.

They will also use the threat of action over Xmas against DJ....

Unlikely...but they can do as the QF engineers did go work verrry slowly.
simple checks taking much longer than planned caused backlogs and flows thru to the operational fleet availablility
I have to admit when i first saw the media beatup the first thing I thought was..DJ must have an EBA with engineers up for renewal.
At least there was no bleating about quality of overseas work.Does that mean the DJ engineers didnt pick up a possible fault???No they'reAussies they would never ever miss something.Strangely silent on thatone

 

[russ]

Does anyone else find the word 'disintergrated' gross hyperbole? Disintergrated means it basically vanished into thin air. It certainly didn't do that.

No, disintegrate does not mean vanish into thin air. It's simply the opposite of integrated, ie coming apart.

dis⋅in⋅te⋅grate

1. to separate into parts or lose intactness or solidness; break up; deteriorate: The old book is gradually disintegrating with age.

2. Physics. a. to decay. b. (of a nucleus) to change into one or more different nuclei after being bombarded by high-energy particles, as alpha particles or gamma rays.

from dictionary.com

 

[pauly7]

Unlikely...but they can do as the QF engineers did go work verrry slowly.
simple checks taking much longer than planned caused backlogs and flows thru to the operational fleet availablility
I have to admit when i first saw the media beatup the first thing I thought was..DJ must have an EBA with engineers up for renewal.

They sure do and from all accounts its going to be a tough one for DJ to manage - there have been posts and news articles warning about potential delays due to action on DJ over Xmas....