Lufthansa A359 at Munich on Sep 15th 2021, burst tyre on departure

Last Update: September 17, 2021 / 08:41:41 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Sep 15, 2021

Classification
Incident

Airline
Lufthansa

Flight number
LH-434

Departure
Munich, Germany

Destination
Chicago O'Hare, United States

Aircraft Registration
D-AIXK

Aircraft Type
Airbus A350-900

ICAO Type Designator
A359

A Lufthansa A350-900, registration D-AIXK performing flight LH-434 from Munich (Germany) to Chicago O'Hare,IL (USA), departed Munich's runway 26L at 16:04L (14:04Z) and was enroute at FL380 about 50nm north of Glasgow,SC (UK) when the crew decided to turn around and return after receiving information that they had likely burst a tyre on departure. The aircraft performed a gear down low approach to Cologne's (Germany) runway 32R, climbed back to FL190 and was holding near Nuremberg (Germany) and Munich to burn off fuel. The aircraft subsequently landed safely on Frankfurt/Main Airport's runway 25C about 6:15 hours after departure.

The Aviation Herald learned that during departure parts of a tyre separated from the aircraft. The crew was informed about the tyre debris on the runway while over the UK, the crew decided to return to Munich. Lufthansa's A350s do not have an (optional) fuel dump system, landing would thus occur in night time conditions, therefore the crew used the remaining daylight available for a low approach to Cologne to have the gear inspected from the ground, then carried on to burn off fuel. However, Munich is down to one runway only and would not have accepted the aircraft before 23:00L (21:00Z) due to the risk of that one runway being shut down by a possibly disabled A350, hence the decision was made to land the aircraft in Frankfurt.

Ground Observer Stefan, see reader comment below at Sep 16th 2021 05:53Z, reported there had been a bang on departure of the A350.

On Sep 17th 2021 Lufthansa reported tyre debris was located on the departure runway some time after 16:00L (14:00Z). The debris was analysed and identified to belong to D-AIXK, the crew was subsequently informed and enroute over Scotland decided to turn around. The tyre did not lose pressure, however, part of the tyre casing (outer skin) had separated.

Munich's runway 08L/26R is currently closed (starting Jul 8th 2021, estimated until Oct 2nd 2021), related NOTAM:

A4175/21 NOTAMN
Q) EDMM/QMRLC/IV/NBO/A /000/999/4821N01147E005
A) EDDM B) 2108070300 C) 2110020300
E) RWY 08L/26R CLSD. REF AIP SUP IFR 15/21.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Sep 15, 2021

Classification
Incident

Airline
Lufthansa

Flight number
LH-434

Departure
Munich, Germany

Destination
Chicago O'Hare, United States

Aircraft Registration
D-AIXK

Aircraft Type
Airbus A350-900

ICAO Type Designator
A359

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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