It seems to me that this has similarities with the MK Halifax disaster. Let me be clear and explain.
As stated and , as I understand it the rotation was late and climb out speed "slow".
This is not exactly what happened in Halifax , but there are lessons to be learnt and similarities between the facts of MKJ and what appears to be a thread here.
The Halifax incident sighted in the report as wrong take of power set and (it was the same take off power as the previous , almost empty ferry sector from North of New York , Bradley I think from memory).
So if the wrong take off figures were calculated, based on unreliable, unrealistic weights, then it would seem that the end of the run way arrived sooner than expected, causing the over rotation and a tail strike.
MK's senior mangement and again from memeory the flight safety officer and ops Director were approached by Cranfeild to try and design / understand a method of speed calculation verses runway length etc to prevent this from happeneing again. Whether or not this is ongoing i dont know, but there was an effort to improve and reduce this from happening again.
Not the same as weighing the aircraft on stand but with the same end result in mind.
MK Halifax was caused as we who were involved know by the fatigue and lack of knowledge on the BLT and the latent faults that laid within it. Not wishing to bang on the same drum that was beat for so long , post Halifax but many of the PPruner's balmmed the MK culture for dangerous practice and all the rest of the rubbish that was going around at the time and many blamed Mike Kruger for all sorts of things, many he could be held accountable for, along with 70 % of every other airline owner COO /CEO. But who now will critisise the safety and procedures of EK, not many I would imagine. But you see , and I know hindsight is a wonderful thing, Mike Thorneycroft and his crew were in exactly the same position as the EK crew, only there was an obsticle at the end of the runway (a 10 foot high burm), otherwise they would be here today.
Lessons to be learnt, yes i think so. Dont critisise untill the final incident reports are out.
Goes with out saying that the EK crew did well and got the aircraft on the ground safely, that has to be the message we all focus on not looking for argument fuel, not withstanding this is a rumour forum.
Nuf said
