Originally Posted by James7
Boeing 747-412 9V-SMT, flight SQ286, tail strike during take-off, Auckland International Airport, 12 March 2003.
Tail strike due to fact that Vr was calculated 33 knots less than the required 163 kts.
Interesting to note :
The tail scrape marks along the runway surface from 9V-SMT started at about 55% of the runway length and ended about 68% of its length (12000 feet)
In the EK407 case, we may assume the tail scrape marks are on the very last portion of the runway as the airplane was still rolling at this time, so probably no attempt here to rotate at a too low calculated Vr, but almost an obvious indication of some kind of thrust deficit.
Could it be justified by simply inverting 2 numbers and entering 72 when the appropriate calculated FLEX was in fact 27 ?
Again ... just a possible scenario ...