PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Air France crash at YYZ (Merged)
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Old 18th Sep 2005, 18:36
  #538 (permalink)  
Flight Safety
 
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Thanks Zeke, that was the information I was looking for. It's interesting that the braking performance is better with 1/2 inch of water on the runway compared to 1/4 inch of water. I guess the extra water helps to slow the aircraft down.

So we know the following facts about this accident, as they relate to braking performance:

1. All systems were working normally, including reversers and anti-skid.
2. The landing configuration was set to FULL, the autobrake was set to MED.
3. The touchdown airspeed was 143K, the ground speed at touchdown was 148K, indicating a 5K tailwind component at touchdown.
4. The investigators have said the touchdown speed was close to normal (I can't find what the exact VRef should have been).
5. The touchdown point was approximately 4000ft (1219m) down the runway from the threshhold, leaving 5000ft (1524m) to stop (oops, from Zeke's data, we're probably already going off the end of the runway aren't we).
6. The spoilers deployed normally when the MLG touched down.
7. The pilots applied full brake pressure almost immediately after touchdown, thus overiding the autobrake. However the anti-skide worked normally.
8. The pilot didn't deploy the thrust reversers until 12 seconds after MLG touchdown.

For braking performance, the main piece of information that's still missing, is the landing weight of the aircraft. I scanned all 538 posts from this thread, and no one has posted this data. This information will tell us what braking performance should have been expected, how tight the stopping conditions actually were on this runway under these conditions, and perhaps if the pilots should have even attempted the landing.
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