A wheel came off a Ryanair aircraft on the tarmac at César Manrique Airport on Saturday evening, rolling across the apron before being brought to a stop by an airport worker in a service van. Footage of the incident, captured by the Live Lanzarote Webcam, was shared widely on social media over the weekend after Spanish national broadcaster RTVC posted the clip on X.
AENA has confirmed that the tyre came from a Ryanair aircraft and that airport operations continued as normal throughout. No injuries were reported, no other aircraft or vehicles were affected, and no flights were delayed as a result of the incident.
El momento en el que un neumático de la compañía Ryanair atraviesa parte de la zona operativa del aeropuerto de Lanzarote durante este fin de semana. El suceso hizo que varios vehículos de trabajadores del aeropuerto se movilizaran para evitar que la goma siguiera rodando…— RTVC (@RTVCes) July 13, 2026
What Happened on Saturday Evening
The incident took place during the evening of Saturday 11 July on the platform area of César Manrique Airport. A tyre came loose from a Ryanair aircraft on the ground and began rolling across the apron. Airport ground crew responded quickly, with one worker taking a service van to intercept the wheel and using the vehicle to guide it back to a safe position before it could reach other aircraft, vehicles or personnel operating in the area.
The whole sequence was captured on the Live Lanzarote Webcam, which streams a continuous view of the airport apron. RTVC picked up the footage and shared it on X on Sunday, from where it circulated widely across social media platforms.
Ground Crew Response
The airport apron is a busy operational area with aircraft, fuel trucks, baggage vehicles, catering trucks and ground personnel all working in close proximity. A loose wheel rolling at speed through that environment carries genuine risk of collision damage or injury to workers on the ground.
The speed of the ground crew’s response is the reason the incident ended without consequence. AENA has not commented on individual staff performance but the outcome speaks for itself. The wheel was contained within a small area of the apron, no operational disruption followed, and the aircraft in question will have been withdrawn from service for inspection before returning to the schedule.
Wider Context for Ryanair
The Lanzarote incident is the third widely reported Ryanair issue in a short period. Earlier in July, a Ryanair passenger sustained injuries when engine debris broke a cabin window mid-flight. Last Tuesday, a Ryanair service from Manchester to Alicante diverted for an emergency landing in France. None of the incidents are connected and all ended without serious injury, but the combination has produced a difficult stretch of headlines for the airline.
Wheel separation incidents are rare but not unprecedented in commercial aviation. British Airways lost a main landing gear wheel from an Airbus A350 departing Las Vegas in January, with the aircraft completing its long-haul flight to London Heathrow without incident. Modern commercial aircraft carry sufficient landing gear redundancy that the loss of a single wheel is typically not a critical safety issue, although each case is investigated in detail by the operator and the relevant aviation authorities.
Lanzarote Airport and the Live Webcam
Saturday’s footage is the latest in a series of Lanzarote Airport incidents to circulate widely on social media in recent months. A Jet2 flight from Birmingham captured attention earlier in the year with a dramatic go-around at the airport, aborting a landing at the last moment before touching down safely on the next attempt.
The airport’s exposed coastal location, combined with the Atlantic trade winds and the continuous public webcam feed, means that most operational irregularities are recorded and shared within hours. For plane spotters and aviation enthusiasts, César Manrique has become one of the more closely watched airports in the European network.
Impact on Passengers
Passengers with existing Ryanair bookings to Lanzarote in the coming weeks are unaffected by Saturday’s incident. The aircraft involved will have been withdrawn from service pending inspection, and Ryanair continues to operate its standard summer schedule across UK, Irish and mainland European routes into the island. AENA has confirmed that airport operations are running normally.
The airline has not issued a public statement on the incident beyond AENA’s confirmation of the operator involved. Any findings from the technical investigation would be expected to feed into Ryanair’s maintenance processes rather than becoming public information, in line with standard practice across the aviation industry.
