dailynewsnblog
Last night, a DHL Boeing 737-800 freighter had an eventful arrival at 
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in Southern California after what had initially been a run-of-the-mill domestic flight from Phoenix. As the aircraft braked after touching down, it reportedly locked its brakes, causing at least one of its tires to explode and subsequently catch fire. The alarming incident was caught on a livestream.
Once the Boeing 737 had come to a stop on the runway, it was met by multiple emergency services vehicles, with several of the airport’s fire trucks spraying the burning wheel from a safe distance. There were ultimately no injuries as a result of the incident, but the runway upon which the jet had touched down and come to a stop has had to be temporarily closed. Let’s examine what exactly occurred.
A Fiery Landing In Los Angeles
According to reporting on the matter by local media outlets such as KTLA5 and ABC7, the jet was arriving from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport (PHX) in the US state of Arizona just after 11:00 PM last night when the incident occurred. A quick look at tracking data made available by Flightradar24 shows, therefore, that the flight in question was numbered as K5-1814, with the 737 operating it being registered as N326FL.
After leaving Phoenix at 10:08 PM, the jet was in the air for less than an hour before touching down in Los Angeles at 11:06 PM local time. However, as seen in the clip above, this is where things started to go wrong, with the 737 locking its brakes and subsequently having a tire fire and explosion. The pilot told air traffic control at LAX that “I don’t know if we blew a tire, but it feels like the brakes locked up.” A spokesperson for DHL told Simple Flying that:
“A Kalitta Charters II aircraft operating on behalf of DHL experienced an apparent brake system issue upon landing at the LAX airport on the night of August 26, which resulted in a brake overheat. There were no injuries, and all crew members are safe. The carrier is currently working to move the aircraft to facilitate further inspection and assessment.”
The Incident Has Resulted In A Temporary Runway Closure
As seen in the dramatic clip of the incident, which just happened to be captured on an online live stream, fire trucks from the emergency services were swiftly on the scene. They extinguished the blaze from a safe distance with their water cannons in spectacular fashion, with KTLA5 noting that the jet’s rear left landing gear was the source of the fire. It had come to a stop around halfway down runway 25L.
With the stricken DHL Boeing 737-800 freighter having halted on this 3,382-meter (11,095-foot) concrete-paved strip, ABC7 notes that LAX has had to temporarily close the runway. In any case, no injuries were reported as a result of the incident, and, maybe unsurprisingly given the late hour of the fire and the presumably significant damage caused, N326FL is yet to take to the skies once again at the time of writing.
Last night’s flight was the fourth of the day for N326FL. Indeed, according to data from Flightradar24, it had flown from LAX out to Phoenix that morning, before completing a round trip to Reno-Tahoe International Airport (RNO) in Nevada and back for flights two and three. This rotation is very much N326FL’s bread and butter: in fact, the last time it flew elsewhere was June 1, when it was in Cincinnati and Tulsa.
The Aircraft Involved Hasn’t Always Been A Freighter
According to present fleet data available by ch-aviation, N326FL is 24.74 years old, having first flown back in December of 2001. The jet was delivered to Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) later that month, with the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish flag carrier having ordered it back in October of 1995. Throughout its time at SAS, the aircraft bore the Norwegian registration LN-RRT and had the name Lodyn Viking.
According to Planespotters.net, the jet was initially configured to have 181 seats on board, before two more were added in January 2019. After being withdrawn from use by SAS in May of 2021, it was ferried to Tianjin for a cargo conversion just over a year later. By this time, it had been re-registered as N326FL, and, after serving Mesa Airlines from 2022 to 2024, it is now operated by Kalitta Charters II for DHL.
