Q400 loses wheel on landing
 

Incident: Colgan DH8D at Buffalo on May 12th 2009, lost wheel on landing
[B]
By Simon Hradecky, created Wednesday, May 13th 2009 09:13Z, last updated Wednesday, May 13th 2009 09:13Z

A Colgan Air de Havilland Dash 8-400, registration N187WQ performing flight 9L-3268 from Newark,NJ to Buffalo,NY (USA), had landed on Buffalo's runway 23 and was taxiing to the ramp via taxiway Alpha, when the tower queried the crew, whether they had lost a tire. After an affirmative reply from the crew emergency services inspected the taxiway and decided to also have a look onto the runway, then reported that fluid, possibly from hydraulics, was on the runway and a whole wheel had been located with debris around the intersections of runway 23, runway 32 and taxiway Alpha. Both runways were closed, runway 32 reopened about 10 minutes later.






Come on guys whats going on?

Sounds like shady maintenance in securing the tires. At least it wasn't the engine that fell off.

Why would you taxi if you knew you lost a tire? It's never happened to me, but is that standard procedure? I would think you should stop and wait for assistance.

Their owned by Pinch-a-Nickel right?....guess that explains it. Spend a $1 to save a nickel.

I would suspect that they looked at their tires only after being queried by the tower. There is not "tire off" light in the cockpit. Having dual tires on each side, you may not know that you had lost a single tire.

I also wouldn't put my faith in the total accuracy of the news report itself.

So that's what's going on from this perspective. (Ditto on shoddy mx procedures as securing nut should be safety wired).

Depends on the AC. I never new any for the the Q400 but some AC have speed and turning limitations depending on how many tires are lost and from which gear assembly they were lost from.

I'm kind of surprised a passenger didn't flip out on this one. People are already on edge on "these little crop-dusters" as one man described a CR7 at DCA, and the Dash 8 has one of the best passenger views of the landing gear in aviation (MABYE a better view from the back seat of a 172 but I doubt it). I would figure whoever was sitting next to the tire would have freaked out and started yelling at the FAs and the message would be relayed before the tower figured it out but thats just my opinion.

Bad timing and location for this to happen. I am surprised the media has not ran with this story. Q400 operated by Colgan landing in Buffalo loses a wheel. Has all the points the media can use to sensationalize the "dangers" of regional airlines. Good for colgan this seems to be staying under the radar or this would just be another nail in the coffin.

not good press for Colgan. That's a bummer.

on a side note, and i dont know the timeline as to how long after turning off the runway the tower asked them, but shouldn't you take the initiative and tell the tower that a part of your airplane fell off and might be on an active runway as a safety/courtesy to the guy landing/taking off behind you??