AAL 737 Makes Uneventful Emergency Landing At LAX

ANN REALTIME REPORTING 09.02.08 1600 EDT: Their attention diverted from looming hurricanes and political conventions for the moment, all three major cable news networks offered breathless coverage Tuesday of an American Airlines Boeing 737-800... that made a thoroughly routine emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport, after blowing out one of its left maingear tires on takeoff.

Flight 1586 took off from LAX bound for Toronto at 11:00 am PDT. The plane's flight crew reportedly heard a thunk, and ascertained they'd lost at least one tire.

"The information I have is it is one of the left main landing gear tires," FAA spokesman Ian Gregor told KCAL-9 in Los Angeles as the situation unfolded.

The plane then circled Catalina Island for close to three hours to burn off fuel. "That would diminish the possibility of having some sort of fire when it lands," LAX spokesman Albert Rodriguez told the Los Angeles Times. "Taking out some of the danger."

The Boeing 737 has two tires per gear truck on each of its two maingear assemblies, and is certified to be able to land safely on just one tire per truck at maximum landing weight if necessary.

Cable news outlets caught the story about 20 minutes before the plane returned to LAX for its landing... which proved to be a complete non-event, but at least it was captured by news cameras from CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.

We probably don't have to tell you that none of the 135 passengers and crew onboard the plane were injured.

(Screengrabs courtesy of CNN and FlightAware.com)

FMI: www.aa.com