Chinese cargo plane makes emergency landing after tyres burst during take-off

A Chinese cargo plane made an emergency landing on Thursday morning after tyres on the wheels of one of three sets of landing gear burst during take-off, mainland media reports.

The Loong Air flight left Xiaoshan International Airport, in the city of Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province, heading for Kunming at 5:46am, the news portal Zhejiang Online reported.

However, it turned back after the pilots reported that the landing gear had behaved oddly as the plane took off, the Hangzhou airport’s authority was quoted as saying in the report.

The aircraft made a safe emergency landing back at the airport at 9:54am, officials said.

Another report by Qianjiang Evening News, without quoting a source, said that after the plane had taken off, airport staff had spotted debris, which appeared to parts of the aircraft’s landing gear tyres lying on the runway tarmac.

A series of pictures circulating online showed airport firemen spraying foam on the aircraft as it stood on the runway, with at least one of the landing gear wheels without tyres.