Police rushed to a major US airport after a Boeing 767 suffered a dramatic landing failure on Tuesday evening.
A Latam Airlines flight had completed a seven-hour journey from Lima, Peru, when every one of its eight landing tyres burst simultaneously upon touching down in Atlanta.
Remarkably, none of the 221 passengers aboard the aircraft sustained injuries during the ordeal.
According to Fox 5 Atlanta, aviation experts believe the tyre failures may not have resulted from an excessively hard landing, but rather from a malfunction within the plane’s automatic braking system.
Airport workers who witnessed the landing reported hearing several loud bangs as the wheels made contact with the runway, followed by clouds of smoke billowing from the aircraft.
“I was at work and my co-workers and I heard a couple of loud bangs and saw a lot of smoke,” one wrote on social media.
“One of the airport ops guys told us that the plane landed so hard that all the tires blew out.”
Passengers aboard the flight described an unnerving experience as the aircraft slowed down.
Emergency services rushed to Atlanta’s airport after the calamity
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11ALIVE
One traveller recalled the disturbing sensation of wheels shuddering against the tarmac for what felt like an extended period.
Retired Captain Paul Carr, a former Delta pilot with extensive experience flying 767 aircraft, described the incident as highly unusual when speaking to Fox 5 Atlanta.
Whilst individual tyre blowouts occur with some regularity in aviation, having all eight fail at once is exceptionally rare, he explained.
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“That’s very odd for all eight tires to blow on a landing,” Mr Carr said.
He added: “More than likely, the brake system logic… malfunctioned, and it locked up all the brakes and just caused them to blow.”
Photographs taken in the aftermath revealed significant damage inside the cabin.
Interior panels could be seen hanging loose and a lavatory door ripped completely off its hinges.
A LATAM Airlines Boeing 767 suffered a dramatic landing failure at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport
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GETTY
Those on board faced a lengthy wait before they were allowed to disembark.
Passengers were stranded on the tarmac for two hours before they set foot back on the plane.
They were eventually ferried to the terminal building by bus rather than using the aircraft’s normal boarding bridges.
