Emirates tailstrike at Melbourne.

[cHabu]

An Emirates flight smashed its tail taking off from Melbourne last night before dumping fuel for an emergency landing.

Smoke reportedly filled the cabin of the plane bound for Dubai as the captain dumped fuel in Port Phillip Bay.
The plane's tail smashed into the tarmac, leaving debris behind as it took off at 10.30pm last night.
The incident forced Melbourne Airport to shut a runway.

The A340-500 landed safely at Tullamarine 90 minutes after its rocky take-off.
There were no injuries reported among the plane's 225 passengers.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau spokesman Ian Brokenshire said damange to the plane was "substantial".
He said it was a long aircraft and "tail hits are a hazard on take off".
"The larger they are, the more the likelihood of a tail strike," he said. "This incident caused substantial damage.
"A team from Canberra and Brisbane are flying to Melbourne to investigate."

An Emirates spokesperson confirmed the incident in a statement at 11.20am: "Last night, EK 407 from Melbourne to Dubai
had to return to Melbourne shortly after take-off when a flight deck indication alerted the Captain to the possibility of the
tail contacting the runway on departure.

"A high level Emirates’ Flight Safety and Operations team is flying to Melbourne to investigate the matter.
They will join Emirates’ engineers already present on site.

Full story here.

Credit: News.com / the Oz spotters group.

Note: aircraft involved reported as A6-ERG.

Bye, Chris.

[flying_kiwi]

Reports are that it was much worse than 'just' a tailstrike.
Apparently the aircraft overran the runway as well and took out the localizer antenna! All in all, it wasn't that far away from having a completely different (read tragic) ending.

Regards,
Yorden

[SPL]

Quit serious indeed:



http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1558/a6erg2.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/6858/a6erg.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1420/a6erg3.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Photographer unknown.


Groeten Martijn

[ErikFB]

That's more than just a tailstrike, looking at the damage and the hole in the tailsection. Seems to be right that they had hit a lamppost or something like that.

[Rockville]

According to the ANP, the mishap took place as the pilot inserted a wrong take-off weight into the system.
Lunk: url: http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/art ... rd_gewicht" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[flying_kiwi]

According to the ANP, the mishap took place as the pilot inserted a wrong take-off weight into the system.
Lunk: url: http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/art ... rd_gewicht" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Indeed, very similar to the SQ incident that took place in Auckland back in 2003.
The preliminary report from the ATSB has been released, and shows that the tail first struck the runway 229m before the end, and that the aircraft didn't start to climb until 292m past the end of the runway, having left marks on the ground, and damaging approach lighting and the localiser antenna.

Report

Regards,
Yorden

[JS50557]

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released its preliminary report regarding the take-off of an Airbus A340-500 flown by Emirates that nearly turned into a disaster.

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/inv ... Prelim.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; http://xrl.us/bescyd" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The pilots used a laptop to develop the flight plan which involved a reduced-power take-off. The performance calculation used to determine the power settings required on the engines were based on an incorrect value. The weight of the aircraft was entered as 262 tonnes instead of 362 tonnes. Neither the pilot nor the co-pilot caught the error during cross checks,

More info can be found here:
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/go/risks/25/67/1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Key]

Sign of the times: 'the computer says so, it must be true'. But garbage in = garbage out (GIGO) and a better awareness of power settings vs. weight (talking about a difference of 100000kg here!) would likely have prevented this accident. Quite worrying.

Thx for the updates,
Erik

[Hurricane]

Sign of the times: 'the computer says so, it must be true'. But garbage in = garbage out (GIGO) and a better awareness of power settings vs. weight (talking about a difference of 100000kg here!) would likely have prevented this accident. Quite worrying.

Thx for the updates,
Erik

You're right about "the compter says so" but the intel is received by human input, double checked prior to departure (so fill the rest...)

Hopefully they didn't wasted the Aft-pressure bulkhead; if so the a/c will fase a very expensive repair / scrapyard will become very interesting...

Adios,

Hurricane.

[flying_kiwi]

Sign of the times: 'the computer says so, it must be true'. But garbage in = garbage out (GIGO) and a better awareness of power settings vs. weight (talking about a difference of 100000kg here!) would likely have prevented this accident. Quite worrying.

The really worrying thing is, as I posted 2 weeks ago when the report came out, that this is almost an exact replica of the SQ B744 tailstrike in Auckland in 03.

Indeed, very similar to the SQ incident that took place in Auckland back in 2003.

That would suggest that the lessons from that incident haven't been learnt, or that the importance of those lessons has been underestimated.

Hopefully they didn't wasted the Aft-pressure bulkhead; if so the a/c will fase a very expensive repair / scrapyard will become very interesting

Apparently there is some pressure bulkhead damage, and they are currently planning to ferry the aircraft unpressurised to Toulouse for further repairs.

Regards,
Yorden

[Key]

You're right about "the compter says so" but the intel is received by human input

That's what I say: GIGO.

The really worrying thing

Absolutely. Let's hope awareness is global now!

Erik

[United 777]

A6-ERG was noted on the ground in Dubai on 4 May 2009.

[air-bus]

According to this article (in German), the damaged bird (A6-ERG) will re-enter service in November 2009.

Regards,
Arno