A Qatar Airways Boeing 777 aircraft suffered nose tire damage while departing from Doha, Qatar to Bangkok, Thailand, and diverted back to the airport of departure.

The incident occurred on March 23, 2021, when Qatar Airways Boeing 777-300, registered as A7-BAE, was taking off for a flight QR-832 from Doha International Airport (DOH) at 1.35 p.m. (UTC). It was supposed to reach its final destination in Bangkok International Airport (BKK) after 6.5 hours of flight the same day. However, while the aircraft was climbing out of DOH airport runway 34R, the flight crew noticed a strange noise similar to an impact on the lower fuselage of the jet and reported the abnormality.

The flight crew suspected having suffered a bird strike or nose tire damage, but no abnormal indications of tire pressure appeared and pilots decided to continue the flight. The aircraft had been in the air for nearly 2.5 hours en route at FL370, having already entered the Indian Airspace, when the flight crew received information about the jet’s tire debris found on the departure runway at DOH airport. The pilots immediately decided to turn around and return to the airport of departure.

According to the Flightradar24.com data, the jet safely landed on DOH airport runway 34R at 5.25 p.m. (UTC) with no further incidents reported.

It was the first Qatar Airways incident in 2021. In 2020, the airline recorded 5 incidents, where its aircraft suffered two bird strikes, a hydraulic fluid leak, a loss of cabin pressure, and a landing gear retraction problem.