Tires And Tubes

The following is derived from maintenance facility submissions to the FAA’s Service Difficulty Reports database.

Aviation Safety

Saturday, November 09, 2024 at 06:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By: Omar Filipovic

Key Takeaways:

Aircraft tires, particularly retreads, are experiencing significant quality issues, including manufacturing defects like air gaps, thin rubber, and premature material degradation such as cracking, even with zero flight hours.
Many reported incidents involve tires failing prematurely, ranging from unairworthy conditions after only a few flight hours to internal defects causing tube abrasion or debonded components.
Some issues are systemic, with specific tire part numbers showing fleet-wide sidewall failures and blistering across multiple aircraft.

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Cessna 172L Skyhawk

Defective Retread

New retread tire installed on aircraft. Three hours and four landings later, post-flight inspection revealed a bulge on inboard sidewall. Examination revealed an air gap of 0.375 to 0.5 inch depth between outer and inner surfaces. Gap area estimated 2-3 square inches. Groove was sliced open; outer rubber thickness at slice was less than 0.030 inch. Tire was shipped to me with 8130 release, but was not airworthy.