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Southwest Jet Suffers Tire Fire at Houston-Hobby

May 13, 2009 at 8:38 AM | by JetSetCD | 4 Comments

Last night was a beautiful evening, that is unless you happened to be channel surfing as we were, and come across Anderson Cooper talking between shots of a Southwest Airlines plane on fire and evacuating passengers via emergency slide.

Of course it wouldn't have been a pleasant end to the day for the passengers aboard Flight 519 from New Orleans to Houston either, as sitting aboard a flaming plane wasn't in the plans.

Upon landing at Houston-Hobby airport, the Southwest jet's tire caught fire and burned steadily through until emergency personnel arrived to the crippled plane on the runway. At that point, the rear left emergency slide deployed to get all 47 passengers and 5 crew out safely.

As a precaution, Houston-Hobby closed two of their three runways during the ordeal, but the fire was quickly subdued by airport emergency vehicles.

While watching all of this late last night on our television screen, we were immediately transported back to the harrowing moments in 2005 when we tuned in on the internet to the live video of Jetblue Flight 292, which had reported nose landing gear difficulties and had to perform a tricky (and similarly pyro) landing at LAX. We suppose it's a credit to the pilots and airport crew that both of these planes did not meet with tragic ends, but still—fire with the close proximity of jet fuel is not a landing for which you'd applaud.

Related Stories:
· Tire fire forces plane's emergency evacuation [AP]
· SWA Plane Catches Fire at Hobby [ABCLocal]
· The Not-So-Friendly Skies: Wheels on Fire and Emergency Landings [Jaunted]
· Airplane Hell Coverage [Jaunted]

4 Comments

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Return to » Southwest Jet Suffers Tire Fire at Houston-Hobby

  1. dwebb

    Jaunted Member

    What were they supposed to do?

    Really, why the heck do the pilots of JetBlue 292 not deserve applause? I'm really not sure how they could have avoided any sparks/flames considering the front landing gear was stuck in place. They flew around to burn off fuel to make the plane lighter, and then kept the nose gear off the runway as long as possible. What else could they have done?
    May 13, 2009 at 9:04 AM
    #Permalink

  1. JetSetCD

    Jaunted Member

    re: What were they supposed

    Thanks for the comment--the Jetblue pilots were indeed amazing to handle the situation so well. I was referring to the tradition of passengers applauding after landings. But after a landing involving fire, you would forget about this and think only of getting out as quickly as possible.
    May 13, 2009 at 9:08 AM
    Parent #Permalink

  1. pbb

    Jaunted Member

    The really scary part...

    is that miserable load factor. Less than 50 percent of the seats full? Gary Kelly must be horrified!
    May 13, 2009 at 12:00 PM
    #Permalink

  1. Dan Dawson

    Jaunted Reader

    Flaming Plane... man grabs his briefcase?

    It's interesting to watch the people deplaning on the rescue slide. Most of the women have their purses, which generally I'd say "fine, as long as it doesn't slow down your egress any" but then to watch the idiot with his briefcase and paperwork. First he slides it down the slide, goes down himself, then stops on the slide to collect his belongings and chase papers across the tarmac. He gave no thought to anyone else on the plane behind him needing to exit... his precious briefcase was more important to him than their lives. Sure, we are so lucky in this instance that the fire was quickly extinguished and everything worked out fine. But at the time, there was no way for him to know that... that fire could have been heating the fuel in that wing tank and had a sudden explosion. Please people, leave your precious junk on the plane if you are ever forced to evacuate... insurance will replace it, life goes on, and of course you back up your laptop before every flight anyways, so you truly have nothing to loose!
    May 14, 2009 at 3:11 AM
    #Permalink

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