Tire catches fire on American Airlines flight just before takeoff in Tampa

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Passengers on an American Airlines flight out of Tampa got an unwelcome surprise when the wheel of their passenger jet burst into flames just before takeoff, forcing the plane to abort takeoff.

Video captured when the tire caught fire as the plane gathered speed down the runway moments before takeoff Wednesday.

Florida plane goes off runway, crashes into water
The flight, American Airlines flight 590 from Tampa to Phoenix, was scheduled to depart at 7:30 a.m. Eastern but was canceled following the incident, flight tracking services confirmed.

Sheri Blankenship, from Tampa, was flying to Phoenix with her granddaughter after she visited her grandparents for the summer.

“Today was unbelievable,” Blankenship said. “We get to the airport. Everything was fine. We loaded well, got ready to taxi the runway, and started down the runway full force. All of a sudden, it felt like we were on a gravel road.”Then it felt like we hit a big pothole in the road,” Blankenship added.

Blankenship, her granddaughter, and the other passengers sat on the runway while waiting for first responders to put the fire out.

“The plane was on fire,” she said.”The landing gear, whatever.”

Blankenship said it took around three hours for them to be bussed back to the terminal so they could board a different flight. They had to redo their boarding passes and boarded the new plane around 11:30 a.m.“I didn’t want to get on another plane,” Blankenship said. “I wanted the credit, and go to enterprise. I wanted to drive to Phoenix.”

Aviation Expert John Cox called the pilots’ actions a textbook rejected takeoff.

“Pilots practice this every time they’re in the simulator. So this is something we’re trained for,” Cox said. “You see the panels on the top of the wing come up. And you see the reversers and the engine slide open, that says they have done everything that they can do to help stop the airplane.”

He said most pilots will go through their careers and not have a tire fail this catastrophically.