The Reddit thread referenced here centers on VN34, a Vietnam Airlines-coded flight that reportedly suffered a tailstrike during takeoff, followed by significant tire damage during a subsequent emergency landing. As is common with these events, the original poster is working from social media video and photos rather than an official report, and at this stage the sequence of events — whether this was a single continuous flight that departed, struck its tail, and then diverted back with a compromised airframe, or two distinct mechanical failures — remains unconfirmed pending a formal investigation. This is a useful moment to unpack what a tailstrike actually represents structurally and operationally, and why an event like this generates the kind of visible, dramatic damage the poster is asking about.
A tailstrike occurs when the aft fuselage contacts the runway during rotation or landing, typically from over-rotation, an aft center-of-gravity loading error, a mishandled flare, or in rarer cases a mechanical/trim anomaly that pitches the aircraft beyond the geometry-limited rotation angle for that type. On most transport-category aircraft, a tailstrike is not treated as a minor scrape — it triggers a mandatory maintenance hold and structural inspection under the manufacturer's AMM procedures because the aft pressure bulkhead, APU compartment, and skin structure in that area can be compromised even when damage isn't visually obvious from the cabin. If the aircraft continued flying, and especially if it experienced pressurization stress or additional handling difficulty afterward, that raises legitimate questions investigators will need to answer: was the crew aware of the strike, did they get an EICAS/ECAM indication, and did the subsequent approach and landing involve a heavier-than-normal touchdown that overloaded the tires, wheels, or brakes.
The tire damage on landing is a separate but potentially related data point. Blown or shredded tires after an emergency return typically stem from one of a few scenarios: an overweight landing (if the aircraft returned shortly after departure without a fuel dump capability, common on narrowbody types), a hard or long touchdown from a rattled or task-saturated crew flying a damaged airframe, heavy braking or reverse thrust applied asymmetrically, or a mechanical issue with the landing gear itself that was either pre-existing or induced by the tailstrike. None of these are mutually exclusive with pilot technique issues, and it is entirely plausible for investigators to eventually find a chain of events rather than a single root cause — an aft-CG or over-rotation issue causing the tailstrike, followed by a stressed, non-normal landing that damaged the tires. This is precisely the kind of scenario Annex 13-style investigations (in Vietnam's case, under the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, likely coordinating with the airframe manufacturer) are built to untangle through FDR/CVR data, maintenance records, and load-and-trim sheets.
For working pilots, incidents like this reinforce several recurring lessons independent of what the final report says. Rotation technique and adherence to computed V-speeds and pitch targets remain a persistent training focus precisely because tailstrikes are almost always avoidable through disciplined hand-flying or proper monitoring of automation, and many carriers now use flight data monitoring (FDM/FOQA) programs specifically to catch rotation-rate exceedances before they become tailstrikes. It also underscores the importance of treating any airframe-damage event as a full non-normal scenario rather than a "we'll deal with it on the ground" afterthought — an aircraft that has struck its tail should be flown conservatively, briefed thoroughly for the return, and landed with full awareness that structural and weight margins may already be reduced. Finally, the dramatic photos circulating from this event are a reminder to professional aviators of why speculation ahead of an official report is discouraged in operational circles: viral video rarely captures FDR-quality detail, and the actual causal chain — mechanical, procedural, or a combination — will only be established once investigators have the full data set.