Just on the news, AA flight #1586 making emergency landing at LAX blown tire.
FlightAware Flight Tracker AAL1586 burning fuel right now, 139 passengers 11 crew, left main tire shredded on take-off.
Live Air Traffic Control go to KLAX tower.
12:47 LA time aircraft 8 miles out.
Runway 25Right cleared to land.
Successful landing 12:51 stopping on runway, Toronto news showing the landing live, stated “Hope the brakes work!”.
Look kids…Big Ben (Catalina), Parliament (Disneyland)…
Look kids…Big Ben (Catalina), Parliament (Disneyland)…
ROFL…nice touch. 
-Hanover
Wondering why, if they are going to burn off the fuel anyway, they don’t just continue on to thier destination and land there…
I’m not sure, the final destination is Toronto, maybe they wanted to keep the plane at a hub (is LAX a hub for AAL?)
LAX is not a true hub like DFW or ORD. However, they do have a large operation there, much larger than YYZ. Additionally, they only flew long enough to burn off the fuel. It’s prudent to get the aircraft down as soon as possible.
That all sounds good, but I asked a few ATC friends why they did not continue to CYYZ. One of them said they had reviewed the unreleased tapes and gave me a clue as to the conversation between the US ATC and the CYYZ controllers. Politics?
I think they want to return to the airport in case there was any damage done to the plane during blowout. A tire coming apart at 200 mph might punch a hole in something. (Concorde anyone?)
Also, with all the crap dangling from a blown out tire, the gear may not retract properly and if it did, it may not re-extend properly.
http://www.liveatc.net/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4961.0;attach=1983
Recording of ATC during the event.
Link opens directly onto your default media player.
Yeah. “What goes up must come down” isn’t 100% true, especially when it comes to a plane’s landing gear. Raise the gear with a blown tire, and you may not be able to lower the gear when it’s time to land. The plane can only fly at a slow airspeed with the landing gear down, and the gear causes a lot of additional drag. Factor in the slow speed and additional drag, and the plane wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it to its destination.
Another reason we don’t like to fly too far when something that can affect the landing of the plane is the possibility of something else going wrong enroute. Any number of unexpected things can happen that might mean a forced or quick landing at an alternate field, now we’ve got that to deal with in addition to the original problem with the gear.
Bad accidents are almost always the result of several “little things” all going wrong on top of one another - always prudent not to push old man Murphy.
Joe
I am reminded of the Boston incident when the airplane had all green lights but the gear did not extend, the plane scraped on the ground then did a go-around. They were eventually able to get the gear down. The pilots were going to be fired but when they brought the aircraft into the hangar to swing the gear it did in fact fail to extend while having all green lights saying the gear was extended.