This accident was not a stop after V1 but a re landing on the same runway??
Any thoughts on this one?
Pace
>>A pilot's unorthodox handling of an engine-fire emergency on a plane carrying the Leeds United football team has been backed by air investigators.
They ruled that Captain John Hackett made the right decision immediately to re-land the aircraft rather than climb away and land later.
The Leeds United team was returning from a match at West Ham on 30 March 1998 when they were caught up in the drama on the Emerald Air flight from Stansted Airport.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report concluded it had been sensible for Captain Hackett to take over the controls from his less-experienced co-pilot.
Evacuation drills
Captain Hackett managed to get the Hawker Siddeley 748 turbo-prop aircraft back down on the runway after a fire broke out in the right-hand engine.
All 40 passengers and four crew on the flight escaped safely.
The AAIB report said the crew's actions in getting everyone out of the aircraft without fully completing the evacuation drills were "understandable in view of the severity of the fire".
The accident happened at 2330 GMT when the engine failed just after take-off for Leeds Bradford airport.
Captain Hackett: "Split-second" decision
Co-pilot Garry Lucas, aged 33 at the time, was at the controls when he and Captain Hackett heard a sharp bang.
Chief stewardess Helen Dutton, then also aged 33, told panicking passengers to sit down and advised the pilots that the right engine was on fire.
The AAIB report said that in a situation of this kind normal procedure would be for the pilot at the controls to take the plane into a climb while the other pilot went through an emergency check list.
Then the plane could be positioned to land at the departure airport or at an alternate spot.
But the report added that the sequence of events involving the Leeds plane was not "a classic scenario" and that Captain Hackett had decided to take control and re-land.
Engine fatigue
The AAIB went on: "The decision to re-land had to be made rapidly with the information available to him at that instant.
"This decision was sensible in the circumstances, as was his decision to take control from the competent but far less experienced first officer [Mr Lucas]."
The report said that at the time of the accident, Mr Lucas had had 250 hours experience on HS748s, while Captain Hackett had 3,950 hours.
Making 19 safety recommendations, the report said the Dart engine had failed because of fatigue-cracking of the high pressure turbine disc.
Dramatic event
There had been four similar failures of Rolls-Royce Dart engines over 26 years, and one since - in June 2001, said the report.
Leeds United manager David O'Leary - who was assistant manager at the time - helped in the evacuation and was praised for his actions at a news conference the crew held a few days later.
Captain Hackett, from Derbyshire, had said at the April 1998 news conference: "It was a split-second decision. Normal procedure would have been to do a complete circuit, but our judgment was that we did not have the time.
"We landed on the available runway. Unfortunately it was a little too short.
"The plane ran on to the soft ground and the nose wheel detached, making the event seem more dramatic than it probably was."<<