Originally Posted by
longtimeflyin
It seems odd to me that in this case a pilot would choose to land an aircraft that is overweight. That is one of the more dangerous landing configurations especially in the case where they suspect a tire has already been blown and there is no immediate "emergency" once an aircraft has taken off.
It isn't necessary overweight for landing. The fuel tanks would have been filled with the amount of fuel that was calculated they would need, plus reserve, not as much as the tanks could hold. They may not have had much cargo either. There could be many reasons that the plane was within a safe landing weight.
Once one tire has blown, it could have damaged another; so there is a high risk of a tire exploding in the wheelwell at altitude. There have been aircraft losses in the past from damaged tires exploding at altitude and taking out hydraulic lines. In that situation they would not raise the landing gear, thus they couldn't go across the Atlantic with the extra drag of the landing gear down.