AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2021 - 93

RUDDER & WRENCH
Savvy Maintenance coverage sponsored by AIRCRAFT SPRUCE
SAVVY MA INTENANCE /OPINION
Blowout!
Planning for the unplanned
BY MIKE BUSCH
and dropped her off at the
FBO (Hawthorne Hangar
Operations, aka HHO), then
flew back home to Santa
Maria (SMX).
Bright and early Saturday
morning I launched for Jack
Northrop Field again. SoCal
Approach routed me over
LAX at 5,000 feet, followed by
a circuitous route to intercept
the Hawthorne GPS Runway
25 approach. Hawthorne
tower cleared me to land
on Runway 25. I crossed
the boundary at 90 knots,
touched down softly about
500 feet past the threshold,
rolled another 1,000 feet or
so while gently lowering the
nosewheel, then started braking
in anticipation of making
a left turn off the runway
toward HHO where my fiancée
was waiting. Everything
was going perfectly until...
Suddenly, without warning,
the aircraft started pulling
I T WAS SUPPOSED to be a quick downand-back
flight, but it didn't exactly turn
out that way. You see, my fiancée wanted
to spend a few days with her favorite
uncle, who'd just been discharged from
the hospital after surgery. He lives in
Los Angeles, a couple of hundred miles
southwest of where we live. It's a pretty
miserable four-hour drive by freeway, so
I'd offered to fly her there Wednesday
morning and to bring her back the following
Saturday.
The closest general aviation airport
was Jack Northrop Field in Hawthorne
(HHR), just southeast of LAX. It would
be 55 minutes down and 45 minutes back
in my Cessna 310. I landed on Runway 25
hard right. I stomped on the left pedal and
applied left brake and differential power,
but nothing I did succeeded in arresting
the right turn. The airplane headed off the
right edge of the runway despite my futile
efforts to regain directional control.
Then the right wing started to drop,
and I instantly realized what had happened:
My right main landing gear tire
had gone flat! In more than 55 years of flying
GA airplanes and 32 years of flying this
Cessna 310, this was the first time I experienced
a blowout.
The airplane came to rest on the apron
headed perpendicular to the runway. It
didn't want to roll any farther, and I was
not inclined to apply a lot of power for fear
of inducing a prop strike or damaging the
relatively soft aluminum wheel. I pulled
the mixtures to idle cutoff and keyed the
mic: " Hawthorne Ground, Twin Cessna
two-six-three-eight-Xray is immobilized
with a flat right main gear tire and will
require assistance. " I then powered down
the electrics, egressed the airplane, and
waited for assistance.
While waiting, I surveyed the situation.
There was a lot of good news. The
right main tire and tube were pretty much
shredded, but the wheel looked undamaged.
So did the outer gear door and the
propeller tips. I searched for other evidence
of collateral damage and found none.
The airplane had stopped on a hardsurfaced
apron that was painted green (to
simulate the look of grass?) and which I
later learned ATC referred to as " the Green
Zone. " That it was asphalt rather than grass
or dirt should certainly make it easier to
jack the airplane, I thought, and the fact
that I didn't take out any runway lights
seemed like a stroke of luck.
Gosh, it's quiet
About 10 minutes into my survey, I realized
it was awfully quiet. No airport vehicles or
first responders had arrived at the scene of
my immobilized airplane. No other aircraft
had landed or taken off.
Although the airplane was clear of the
runway, it wasn't far enough clear to allow
the tower to reopen the airport-normally
very busy, especially during the weekend.
And even though I'd notified the tower
that I required assistance to extract the airplane
from the Green Zone and allow the
airport to reopen, no assistance seemed to
be forthcoming.
I called HHO on my cellphone and
spoke to Andre who was in charge there.
I explained I was right across the runway
from him with an aircraft immobilized
by a flat tire and needed assistance. He
promised he'd make some phone calls
and see if he could scare up some help.
He must have done so, because about five
minutes later I saw a golf cart approaching,
and shortly thereafter an impressive
Lektro tug that looked like it was designed
to move Gulfstreams and Challengers. I
figured these guys had lots of experience
AOPA PILOT / September 2021
93
AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2021

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