It may be that not many will fly on the airplane those whose fate brought them to travel on the Sepehran Airlines flight SHI-4358 on September 15th, although fortunately no personal injuries occurred.
The problem arose shortly after the landing from Mashti Shahid Hashemi-Nezzad international airport, while the aircraft was heading towards Kermanshah. According to the first reports, part of one of the tire runway surfaces detached during the landing. After the pilots reported an emergency, the aircraft deviated from its course and returned to Meshed. However, it was not just the landing gear that was in trouble: as seen in the video published by the Iranian news agency Aharin Habar and shared by numerous media outlets since then, the long panels of the cabin interior ripped open above the passengers, and some parts of the aircraft's interior structure remained uncovered. Several reports also state that the overhead bins opened, and packages fell out.
Following the incident reported by The Aviation Herald, the airport temporarily closed the runway for investigation, but they reopened it hours later. The exact cause of the tire failure, the degree of engine damage, and the landing conditions must be determined by the relevant authorities.
As to what caused the enormous vibration, opinions are still divided. Some believe the tire problem caused the massive vibration, while other sources write that an engine problem also occurred after the tire damage, and this may be related to the vibrations.
The video made of the incident is much more frightening than the problem itself. The passengers had to endure the huge shaking, the loss of stability, the opening of the overhead bins, the falling of packages, the tearing of the ceiling panels – it was as if the plane was about to fall apart. Fortunately, the top of the Boeing 737 did not fall off. The extreme vibrations only tore the interior, non-primary structural elements of the cabin. However, the plane remained controllable, returned to the airport, and everyone survived the incident.
This current incident followed another event just a few weeks earlier. At that time, one of the airline's 737-500 airplanes could not stay on its assigned runway, derailed, and stopped on another, parallel runway. At the same time, the first landing gear, i.e., the nose wheel system, broke.
Although there were no fatal accidents in Sepehran Airlines' history, the airline's fleet data shows that the average lifespan of its airplanes exceeds 30 years. These three-decade-old aircraft are mainly of Boeing 737 variants, including the 737-300 and 737-500. Moreover, due to international sanctions, the airline has difficulty obtaining aircraft parts, which complicates continuous maintenance.
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