OT - That's really weird. No where have I seen it mentioned that there are fusible plugs that would have prevented that. That's just stanard procedure on regular aircraft tires. And from reading some of the info on Michlen's site, even if just the brakes lock up, that would be enough to heat the tires and hence the plug to let the "air" out. Having a flat tire would be bad, but having it blow up could damage the landing gear enough to have it give way. That could cause a crash, so blowing up ain't allowed.
Surely the shuttle tires would have had fusible plugs. "The force of the explosion would easily blow the door off the wheel well and probably the top off the wing, he said." Sounds like you would want to do everything possible to keep that from happening. I guess it might have been possible for it to heat so fast that the plug didn't melt in time. Don't know enough about it, but seems like the plug would melt long before the tires get hot enough to blow up.
Still even if the tire blew up, it sounds like they had problems else where and the tire blowing only was a symptom and added to the damage.
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