A Boeing 757 lost its front tire as the aircraft was preparing to depart for an international flight over the weekend, the latest mechanical mishap to plague the beleaguered jet line.
Just before noon Saturday at the Atlanta International Airport, a Delta flight bound for Bogota, Colombia, was taxiing across the runway into takeoff position when another plane alerted the control tower that something was amiss.
“Hey, Tower, the 75 on the runway just lost the nose tire,” the pilot of the next plane in the takeoff queue said, according to audio obtained by VASAviation.
“Delta 982, this is the aircraft looking at you. One of your nose tires just came off,” the pilot continued.
“Thanks for that… sounds like we got a problem,” the Delta pilot responded.
After detaching, the plane’s tire rolled all the way across the runway before slipping down an embankment, the pilot reported.
Maintenance crews were called to the scene to locate the tire and assess the situation, while the flights in line behind were forced to wait in place.
“Are you gonna route us to another runway? ‘Cause this looks like it could be quite a while,” a Southwest pilot asked the tower.
“We’re in the process. There’s a lot of moving parts behind the scenes. Give me a second,” the control tower said.
The planes were eventually rerouted to other runways, while the Delta plane remained on the tarmac for three hours.
It remains unclear what led to the detachment of the tire.
Delta did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Boeing has commanded headlines in recent weeks after an Alaska Airlines-owned 737 Max 9 lost a door plug in the skies over Oregon during a flight to California earlier in January.
