Exploding Tyre kills one

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llondel
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Exploding Tyre kills one

#1 Post by llondel » Thu Feb 21, 2019 12:40 am

From the BBC, a report that a tyre on a jetway exploded and killed an airport worker.
An airport worker in southern California has been killed after a tyre exploded during maintenance work, officials said on Wednesday.

The accident happened in a workshop at the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana around 23:30 local time (07:30 GMT) on Tuesday, an airport spokeswoman said.

The worker has yet to be identified by officials. Another worker was present but not injured in the blast.

The tyre was part of the jet bridge connecting the plane to the terminal.

The enclosed walkway allows passengers to board and disembark the plane without going outdoors.

Airport spokeswoman Deanne Thompson said the tyre that blew up was about 4ft (1.2 meters) in diameter.

The explosion was strong enough to trigger the emergency sprinkler system, which prompted a response from the Orange County Fire Authority and paramedics stationed at the airport, she told the Associated Press.

The cause of the explosion has not yet been determined.

Sheriff's officials and the state's workplace safety authority, Cal-OSHA, are planning to investigate.

According to CBS-LA, the workers were contractors for a company called JBT.

"We are deeply saddened by this event, and are focused on providing support and assistance to our employees and their families," the company said in a statement, adding that they are fully co-operating with investigators.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#2 Post by Cacophonix » Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:24 am

This cause of death must rank up there in the annals of weird ground based aviation related deaths. Electrocutions, falls from wings and ladders, crushed by falling equipment, engines, wing sections and fuselage, fires, asphyxiations due to chemical or fuel vapour inhalations, jet engine ingestions, prop strikes, tyre explosions during inflation and even the odd bizarre power tool accident, but being killed by a tyre on a jet bridge!

Unlucky man!

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#3 Post by unifoxos » Thu Feb 21, 2019 1:24 pm

Many people do not realise how dangerous a tyre can be. It was brought to my attention, when, as a teenager, I changed a lorry tyre in a workshop, and complained to the boss that I could only get 11 PSI of pressure out of his airline when I tried to re-inflate it. After he saw that I had misread the gauge and had actually got it up to 110 PSI, I remember all the rest of the lads making a hurried exit out of the shop, calling back to me to let it down gently.

One lady (USAF officer) was killed here not so long ago while holding the car spare on her lap after changing the wheel for a puncture and not able to get the wheel back in the boot.

Googling will find you plenty of incidents, so not so rare as one might think.
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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#4 Post by G-CPTN » Thu Feb 21, 2019 1:37 pm

As a trainee engineer, I was indocrinated with the explosive dangers of tyres and of workshop airline abuse - the 'joke' of sticking a workshop air supply into someone's rectum.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#5 Post by Pontius Navigator » Thu Feb 21, 2019 2:51 pm

I over inflated a tyre by not paying sufficient attention to the inflator. Whilst the repair was expensive it was only a bike tyre.

The expense was because it was an electric hub and had to be dismantled. The bonus was broken spokes were also repaired.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#6 Post by ian16th » Thu Feb 21, 2019 2:53 pm

Question from a former Fairy.

Weren't the Lightning tyres inflated to some extraordinary pressure and only lasted about 5 landings?
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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#7 Post by CremeEgg » Thu Feb 21, 2019 7:14 pm

According to Wiki between 330 - 350 psi - I learn something new every day.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#8 Post by G-CPTN » Thu Feb 21, 2019 7:21 pm

I believe that the 'weakness' with the Lightning's tyres was their narrowness due to the thin-ness of the wing - requiring high pressure to carry the landing load and why they wore out quickly.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#9 Post by ian16th » Thu Feb 21, 2019 9:18 pm

Just a piece of trivia that stuck in my grey cell.

When the Turks v Greeks thing started in Cyprus, the Turkish Air Force overflew Limassol with F-100's.
Nicosia scrambled their Javelin's, by the time they were airborne, the F-100's were back in Turkey.
Abut a week later we had 111 Sqdn, with Lightnings, at Akrotiri and in the radar bay an AI 21 bench was set up by a couple of 'Air Radar Fitters Fighter'.
We had previously been a very 'Bomber' oriented crowd, we even had an NBS bench for visiting V's.

The characteristics of Lightnings quickly became a subject of discussion in the section.
The matter of the high pressure, but short life tyres included.
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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#10 Post by Flintstone » Fri Feb 22, 2019 12:40 am

In 'proper' workshops lorry tyres have to be put into a cage while being inflated.




I wonder why?

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#11 Post by Hydromet » Fri Feb 22, 2019 1:36 am

More than 50 years ago, the danger of exploding tyres was one of the first things we were taught at QF as apprentices.

Some years later, all vehicles where I worked with split rims had to to have the locking rim painted red and the wheel stencilled "Deflate before removing tyre" or words to that effect, after an employee was killed by a flying locking rim.

Re over-inflated tyres, it was the practice when shipping vehicles to the company I worked for in Bougainville to deflate the tyres, chain them to the deck through the wheels, then re-inflate the tyres. Then there was a fatal accident when a new vehicle skidded off the road. Investigation showed that the tyres were at over 90 psi. All vehicles had to be returned to the workshop to have the pressure checked.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#12 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Sat Mar 16, 2019 12:09 pm

I have a decent gauge which I use to check the pressure during each inflation. Actually I think most people do. I have been very grateful more than once for the habit of rural gas stations and workshops having an air line available through a hole in the wall after business hours. Discovering you have a leaky tire at 1 in the morning in the middle of nowhere is not fun. However, they never have gauges, deliberately I think. That's your responsibility.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#13 Post by ian16th » Sat Mar 16, 2019 12:14 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Sat Mar 16, 2019 12:09 pm
I have a decent gauge which I use to check the pressure during each inflation. Actually I think most people do. I have been very grateful more than once for the habit of rural gas stations and workshops having an air line available through a hole in the wall after business hours. Discovering you have a leaky tire at 1 in the morning in the middle of nowhere is not fun. However, they never have gauges, deliberately I think. That's your responsibility.
Many years ago Which produced an article about the gauges at filling stations. The variations between them was horrifying.

By carrying my own gauge, I at least keep any error consistent.
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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#14 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Sat Mar 16, 2019 12:27 pm

With road salt in winter, and grit and sea salt in summer, wheel rims get eroded and corroded, so slightly leaky tires are pretty common here. All my local places, and my own cheap inflator gauge, tend to under-read by about 3-5psi. One over-reads by 4 psi. I checked my decent gauge against my local Inspection Tester's - he has to have his calibrated.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#15 Post by 1DC » Sat Mar 16, 2019 4:45 pm

I got my first car in 1961,a Vauxhall Velox, and it was at a time when if you stopped to refuel it was not unusual to have your oil checked and your tyre pressure checked as part of the service.One day the wife of our local garage owner was working the pumps and said my tyres needed air and proceeded to put some in. After leaving i felt as if i was riding on solid wheels and stopped further down the road and checked the pressures, every tyre was over 60 psi when the recommended psi was about 21!!

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#16 Post by barkingmad » Fri Mar 29, 2019 9:29 am

And then of course we have this mysterious unit called a "bar" which is as sci-fi as joules, ergs and kilocalories and means S F A to the average bonobo chimp, of whom l am a descendant.

I wonder how many have attempted or succeeded in inflating tyres, li-los and footballs to 14.7xnormal pressure before the resultant explosion or simply running out of puff.

And of course the space aces have wasted millions by working Imperial/Metric on the same project with the inevitable results.

Why did SI catch on in the last century when the Industrial Revolution was a mostly foot pounds dimension?

Excellent history primer is the book "One Thousand Years of Annoying the French" which may explain a lot.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#17 Post by ian16th » Fri Mar 29, 2019 9:43 am

barkingmad wrote:
Fri Mar 29, 2019 9:29 am
Excellent history primer is the book "One Thousand Years of Annoying the French" which may explain a lot.
Welcome to the club!

You are the 3rd person on here that admits to having this excellent tome.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#18 Post by k3k3 » Fri Mar 29, 2019 2:26 pm

Make that four.

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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#19 Post by 4mastacker » Fri Mar 29, 2019 4:12 pm

Five.

Senior daughter has a wicked sense of humour and knew her dad would appreciate the content of that fine book. I get puzzled looks from Mrs 4ma when I'm reading it cos I can't stop laughing.
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Re: Exploding Tyre kills one

#20 Post by barkingmad » Fri Mar 29, 2019 7:41 pm

We seem to have drifted away from the bar........ :-\

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