Narrative:

During my preflight inspection; I noticed that my main landing gear tires looked a little low; so I had the FBO at my departure airport inflate them to 35 psig per the specifications in my piper operating manual. Following a normal landing; I noticed that the plane was pulling to the left; and by the time I had slowed down to turn off the runway; it was very difficult to steer or taxi forward with the plane; as there was significant drag associated with the flat tire on the left main at this point. At this point my primary concern was to get the plane off the active runway as soon as possible. I was able to make slow forward progress towards the taxiway on the left by increasing propeller power; but I was not able to stop the aircraft from turning to the left at this point. While the tires remained on the asphalt surface; my left wing veered across the taxiway boundary at this point (as defined by the blue taxiway lights). From my perspective; I believed that my wing was high enough to pass over the top of the blue taxiway lights; but in actuality I clipped two of the lights; resulting in some minor scratches to the paint on the underside of my left wing. At the time I believed that getting my aircraft clear of the active runway in a timely manner was more important than keeping the wing within the taxiway boundary. My a&P mechanic inspected the flat tire after it was removed; and did not find any signs of excessive wear to the tire that could have led to failure upon landing. He believes that the valve stem did not reseal properly when the tire was inflated; and that the tire completely deflated during my flight such that it was flat prior to landing. He recommended that I wet the valve stem opening with saliva after inflation to check for valve stem leaks; which seems like an easy; prudent way to avoid this type of problem. Also; taxiing over objects in a low wing aircraft should be avoided; as it is difficult to judge wing clearance from the cockpit.

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A PA-28's tire deflated during flight after being inflated prior takeoff. A leaking valve stem was suspected.

Narrative: During my preflight inspection; I noticed that my main landing gear tires looked a little low; so I had the FBO at my departure airport inflate them to 35 psig per the specifications in my Piper Operating Manual. Following a normal landing; I noticed that the plane was pulling to the left; and by the time I had slowed down to turn off the runway; it was very difficult to steer or taxi forward with the plane; as there was significant drag associated with the flat tire on the left main at this point. At this point my primary concern was to get the plane off the active runway as soon as possible. I was able to make slow forward progress towards the taxiway on the left by increasing propeller power; but I was not able to stop the aircraft from turning to the left at this point. While the tires remained on the asphalt surface; my left wing veered across the taxiway boundary at this point (as defined by the blue taxiway lights). From my perspective; I believed that my wing was high enough to pass over the top of the blue taxiway lights; but in actuality I clipped two of the lights; resulting in some minor scratches to the paint on the underside of my left wing. At the time I believed that getting my aircraft clear of the active runway in a timely manner was more important than keeping the wing within the taxiway boundary. My A&P Mechanic inspected the flat tire after it was removed; and did not find any signs of excessive wear to the tire that could have led to failure upon landing. He believes that the valve stem did not reseal properly when the tire was inflated; and that the tire completely deflated during my flight such that it was flat prior to landing. He recommended that I wet the valve stem opening with saliva after inflation to check for valve stem leaks; which seems like an easy; prudent way to avoid this type of problem. Also; taxiing over objects in a low wing aircraft should be avoided; as it is difficult to judge wing clearance from the cockpit.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.