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Editor: James T. Crouse
Profession: Aviation Accident Attorney

Category: Airline Travel

We think we have a problem when we have one flat tire on our car - an inconvenience perhaps - all we do is pull out the jack and change the one tire (after possibly having to clear out the trunk - sometimes a major inconvenience). Well, what if you blow four tires on a "vehicle" that's 231 feet long and weighs at least 400,000 lbs - and instead of having to merely clean out the trunk to find the jack, you have remove 232 people who were along for the ride and all their luggage?

This is exactly what happened on Tuesday to Qantas Flight 12 heading to Sydney, Australia, from LAX. The flight was aborted when the pilot noticed the warning light go off as he was attempting takeoff in the Boeing 747-400. No one was hurt, flight operations at the airport were not affected, and the passengers were taken to a hotel until a later flight could be found for them. An uneventful ending to a relatively rare occurrence - and a blessing it happened on takeoff and not on landing in Sydney.