On the first of the new year, a tyre burst and shot off from a Pushback Tug during pushback an fully loaded passenger plane at Hong Kong airport, emerged a “near miss” to the personnel around.
The Pushback Tug Driver, 2 wing-walkers along with a headset man were standing by next to the aircraft. The incident happened seconds after the tug initiated pushing back from the stand for its flight to Seoul.
The CCTV footage indicated the tyre and debris of the wheel assembly fell off and shot off by the pressurised air. The tyre shoots off at high speed and ends up under an Passenger Aerobridge, and the debris of the wheel assembly fell out of the footage and landed on the apron at the next gate.
Referred to the statement from Airport Authority: “No one has been injured in this incident. “ The right front tyre on the Pushback tug has burst during pushback Hong Kong Airlines flights HX628 at Stand D208. “The line maintenance operator immediately replaced the Pushback tug… No one was injured. The Operations of the airports were not affected.”
Hong Kong Airlines said in a statement later and confirmed there was no damage to the aircraft as well as the passengers onboard after its engineering team conducted examination of the aircraft condition, the aircraft is still safe to fly.
The affected Pushback tug is supplied by Pan Asia Pacific Aviation Services (PAPAS), one of the licensed Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) service providers in at Hong Kong International Airport. The company is Responsible for Line Maintenance for customers airlines. It is also a joint venture of Hong Kong Airlines, SIA Engineering Company, Malaysia Airlines. etc.
The affected flight finally departed from gate at 10:42, 42 minutes later than the original departure time. However the flight was still 7 minutes ahead its scheduled arrival time.
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