From the BBC

The Australian airline Qantas has launched an investigation after two tyres burst on one of its Airbus A-380s as it landed at Sydney airport.

Video footage showed sparks showering the runway as the flight from London touched down.

Passengers on board said they heard loud bangs. Nobody was injured.

Source article.

The cause of the tyre burst is believed to have been due to a braking problem. A FOD detection system can be used after such an event to confirm that the runway is clear after the clean up operation.

A MNG Airlines Cargo Airbus A300-B4, registration TC-MNJ performing freight flight MB-6121 from Istanbul (Turkey) to Cologne (Germany), experienced the separation of the right hand engine (CF6) thrust reverser translation sleeve (also known as transcowl) during roll out while landing at Cologne’s Airport. No injuries occured, the airplane sustained minor damage.

The NTSB reported, that another aircraft operating on the runway some time later collided with the debris and sustained wheel damage. The German BFU is investigating.

Source – The Aviation Herald

The belief that an abandoned scrap of metal on the runway resulted in the crash of the Air France Concorde during July 2000 is to be tested in a long awaited trial on Tuesday. It’s this single incident that led to the development of FOD detection systems. It would be interesting to discover that there was another; non-FOD related cause, although I don’t believe this would diminish in any way the contribution that FOD detection systems are currently making to reducing risk on our runways.

Was an abandoned scrap of metal on the runway really the main culprit in the fiery crash of an Air France Concorde shortly after takeoff?

That finding, insisted upon by French investigators for a decade, will be scrutinized and debated in a long-awaited trial starting Tuesday. Prosecutors argue that the supersonic passenger jet never would have crashed in July 2000 — killing 113 — if a Continental Airlines DC-10 hadn’t dropped a piece of titanium onto the Charles de Gaulle airport runway just minutes before the Concorde soared into the summer sky.

Continental lawyer Olivier Metzner says the American airline is simply a convenient scapegoat. He will argue that a fire broke out on the Concorde eight seconds before it even reached the titanium strip, he says.

The case marks the only crash ever of a Concorde, an accident that brought heartache and humiliation to a nation proud of its aviation marvel, a jet that could fly across the Atlantic in half the time of other airliners.

The trial is expected to last four months as the court in Pontoise, north of Paris, tries to pin down who should be held criminally responsible for the crash, which killed 109 people on the plane, mostly German tourists, and four people on the ground. (more…)

An interesting, (and quite worrying) incident took place recently at Charlotte Douglas International, it was reported by the Charlotte Observer. According to the report:

Federal aviation officials are investigating why an American Airlines plane landing in heavy fog Sunday night in Charlotte veered partially off the runway and then scraped a wingtip, as frightened passengers gasped and braced inside.

The impact left parts of the wing and debris on runway 36C, but planes continued to land for another 11 minutes until the runway was closed for planned maintenance about 11 p.m.

If a FOD detection system had been operating at CLT, not only would they have been alerted to the existence of FOD earlier, but the system could also have reduced the closure time by informing airside staff when the runway was clear. Of the FOD detection systems currently available, those that utilize Radar for detection would have had a clear advantage here, as their detection capability would have been unaffected by the heavy fog.

Read the full story at charlotteobserver.com