B737-700
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical
Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; General Declared Emergency; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft
At V1 the aircraft suddenly lurched hard to the left. I corrected with hard right rudder and pulled the nose off the ground to regain control. I believed for a split second we had an engine failure; but quickly determined that was not the case. After conferring with my First Officer we agreed that we had probably blown a nose wheel tire as the gear had retracted normally and advised Tower as such. We advised ATC we wanted to climb to 10;000 FT and assess the problem. After conferring with Dispatch and Maintenance I decided it was in the best interest of safety to declare an emergency; burn off fuel to a reasonable landing weight and return to where I would be guaranteed to have a long runway. Dispatch had suggested that we could continue to destination due to the need to burn fuel off. My concern was in the possibility if something else were to cause us to have to divert to an airport with a short runway that we could be compromising control with heavy braking/max reverse. I established a normal max landing weight of 128;000 LBS as reasonable and Maintenance then informed us we were ok to do an overweight landing as it was within structural limits. I chose to keep 128;000 as I believed it provided us with a better safety margin. I briefed the lead Flight Attendant that as a precaution I would have her prepare the cabin and passengers for the brace command. I informed the passengers; highly emphasizing that this was precautionary only and that I fully expected a normal landing. At this time I also asked the Lead Flight Attendant to utilize a deadheading Flight Attendant as a crewmember and have her occupy the second aft jumpseat. On short final I commanded the brace position on the PA and landed slightly nose up with no use of braking or reverse thrust initially. When the nose wheel contacted the runway with approximately 6;000 FT remaining there was a distinct vibration/grinding and a noticeable bounce from the front. I used minimal braking; utilizing the excess runway length until as long as possible then applied normal braking and reverse thrust to bring the aircraft to a stop with approximately 2;000 FT remaining. CFR inspected the aircraft and said all tires appeared inflated; Maintenance then inspected and cleared us to taxi in. When I started to taxi it was apparent there was something wrong as there was a loud grinding noise and the nose was bouncing. I stopped and had Maintenance tow us to the gate. Maintenance removed the nose wheel assembly and told us the right tire was severely out of balance.
B737 Captain experiences a lurch to the left when passing V1 during takeoff. Once safely airborne the crew believes a tire failure may have occurred and elects to return to the departure airport after declaring an emergency and burning down to maximum landing weight. Maintenance discovers a nose tire to be severely out of balance.