Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-900ER Lands In Los Angeles After Blowing Tire In Washington DC

An Alaska Airlines plane made a safe landing in Los Angeles last night after blowing a tire upon takeoff. There were no reported injuries with the initial incident, and the aircraft continued its transcontinental flight as scheduled and was met with local emergency personnel upon landing.

A little bump in the road

The Boeing 737-900 aircraft pushed back from its gate at Washington (IAD) on Thursday evening. Video footage posted by a passenger shows the plane jolting while accelerating down the runway to take off.

Cockpit recordings of the aircrew to Air Traffic Control reveal that the incident happened as the plane was reaching 160 knots but did not cause any significant damage. When reached for comment by Simple Flying, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority confirmed the presence of debris on the runway:

“Around 6:10 pm on Thursday, members of Dulles International Airport operations were notified of debris on a runway and removed what appeared to be the remnants of the tire of a plane.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed it was investigating the incident.

What happened to the aircraft?

The crew radioed back to dispatch and notified the ground that they were concerned the aircraft had blown a tire or run over something on the runway with the right gear. The pilots noted that the jolt was significant enough for several overhead bins to open and a single oxygen mask to drop from the ceiling, but the airline confirmed there were no injuries among the 175 passengers and 6 crew members onboard.

After conferring with the ground, the aircrew decided to continue on to Los Angeles and continue monitoring the situation as the plane would be significantly lighter at its destination than if it returned to Dulles, with one of the pilots noting:

“We thought that maybe the gear handle wouldn’t come up or there’d be some resistance there, but there wasn’t as we were able to stow it in the up position. We’re keeping an eye on the fuel. Everything looks good on the fuel, no no problem there.

“It looks like, you know, to decrease our weight and everything else, there’s no reason that we could see to discontinue the flight at this point and just press on to Los Angeles and take care of it there.”

The flight crew considered a flyby over LAX to see if they could tell if one or both tires on the right side were compromised and radioed ahead to have emergency equipment standing by on landing.

Videos from the flight show the passengers erupting in cheers as the plane gently touched down and emergency vehicles raced across the tarmac to meet it and escort it to the gate. When reached for comment, an airline spokesperson confirmed the incident was due to a tire malfunction:

“Preliminary reports indicate that Alaska Airlines Flight 309 sustained a main gear tire failure Thursday evening, Nov. 14, on departure from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles. As a precaution during arrival at LAX, our pilots declared an emergency landing to have extra support available if needed.

“The aircraft landed safely at 8:10 p.m. Pacific. No one was injured. While this incident is a rare occurrence, our flight crews train extensively to safely manage through many scenarios.”

An Alaska Airlines spokesperson confirmed the aircraft had been pulled from service while the carrier is investigating what might have caused the tire to malfunction.