Northwest Jet Blows Tires While Landing

As the Northwest 757 lumbered to a shaky stop at Detroit Metro Airport, four of its tires blown, a man on board vocalized what many other passengers were fearing: "It's the strike!"

Airlines officials assure that it wasn't.

"All of the information at this time suggests that this was likely the result of an anti-skid braking issue and had nothing to do with the AMFA strike," the airline said in a statement released to the news media about two hours after the jolting 4:17 p.m. scheduled landing.

All 222 passengers aboard were removed safely from the plane. Some missed connecting flights, while others had to wait more than an hour for their luggage to turn up in the baggage claim area.

The flight, No. 210 from Seattle, did not declare an emergency before landing.

Later Saturday, a second Northwest jet, flight No. 1412, made a safe emergency landing at Metro after flight attendants reported smoke in the cabin. There were no injuries in that incident either, airline officials said.

As flight No. 210 touched ground, passengers said the ride got shaky, much like riding in a car when a tire blows.

"There was a loud, rumbling noise," said Margaret Sans, who was returning to Detroit from a business trip in Seattle. "There was a slight shake to the plane. People looked at each other, like, 'What's that noise?' "

The plane pulled to a stop, then the pilot announced that it appeared as though a tire had popped. The crew and passengers waited as firefighters arrived and determined that all four tires on the plane's right side had blown, Sans said.

"I didn't realize how serious it was until we got off the plane," Sans said. "The tires were just absolutely destroyed."

Those aboard the plane grew testy as they waited about 45 minutes to get off the plane, said Patricia Gerds, who was flying her 6-year-old granddaughter, Lynda, home after a two-week visit to Seattle.

But Lynda wasn't fazed: She slept through the rough landing, then pulled out her toys to kill time as she waited to deboard.

Northwest officials said they'd investigate.

"Issues like this occur from time to time at any airline," the company said in its statement.

Terry Trippler, an airline analyst with CheapSeats.com, said it's highly unlikely that either tire sabatoge or shoddy maintenance would have led to the incident.

"Nothing I could even imagine could create a situation where someone could blow the tires," he said. "I would bet the rent, and I pay a lot of rent, that this is just coincidence."

The flight that made the emergency landing was carrying 72 passengers. It departed from Detroit for Pittsburgh shortly before 6 p.m. The DC9 returned to Metro Airport without incident about 30 minutes later.

Northwest said in a statement that the smoke appeared to be caused by a problem with an air conditioning system, and the smoke cleared from the cabin when the crew turned off the system. Passengers were placed on another Northwest plane for their flight to Pittsburgh.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press