By AM3 Pawel Dorawa
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any personnel have been seriously injured by tire- and wheel-assembly explosions during inflation or deflation. An unregulated supply of nitrogen or air, unfamiliarity with publications, poor supervision, or outright carelessness can make maintenance on tires and wheels extremely dangerous and potentially deadly. That was the case in my shop, on my watch. It had been shaping up to be just another busy day in 51E (tire shop) at Fleet Readiness Center Southeast
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(FRCSE) at NAS Jacksonville, Florida. I was six hours into a 10-hour day of tire build-ups. We had 23 tires (a mixture of P-3 main-mounts and H-60 tail-wheels) to build up and leak check. We had just assembled an H-60 tail-wheel. Meanwhile, an airman was inflating a P-3 tire in the inflator cage. Once the P-3 tire was inflated and removed from the inflator cage, I placed the H-60 tire into the cage. Another maintainer placed the inflation adapter on the valve stem of the H-60 tire. Prior to placing the inflator
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