PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Incident - Incorrect thrust setting for takeoff
Old 9th Feb 2012, 07:21
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aussie027
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Perth, Australia
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Wally, Centaurus,SMOC and clear to land, thank you very much for your answers.

Centaurus, that experience in Nauru sounded damn close to disaster, Thankfully the hauling back and firewalling saved the day. As i was reading your incident description and the Pt2 sensors I was thinking of the Potomac crash and then I saw you mentioned it as I read on.
I am aware that accel is very hard to judge as being normal or not esp at night, unless you have a basic check rule of thumb you know of in your particular acft to help you see that it seems too slow.

I was in particular thinking more of catching that basic data entry type error via some method like SMOC mentioned or a basic mental type check like Wally mentioned to catch the error long before you commence the TKOF roll.

Eg- if the TOW today is between approx X-Y tonnes then Vr/V2 should be approx A-C on an average runway etc. Just some numbers you can compare to what the FMS came up with after all the data entered to catch any gross errors, as in Emirates eg where it was 100 tonnes and the bug speeds were obviously way too low, as well as the thrust.
I met several B727 pilots yrs ago when I was riding part of a number of flights in jump seat (Pre 9/11 days) who did this exact kind of check. They had a little card with some basic wt ranges/speeds/thrust settings on it they had pulled out of the manual as a guide. Any large mismatch and it was ooops, better go back into FMS and cx everything with the load sheet to see what we did wrong.

TKOF roll, as you very well described and Emirates found out, its basically too late, very hard to detect and only a miracle along with TOGA thrust and hauling it into the air may save someone from a runway overrun / collision with obstacles and a major disaster.
This type of error ,like many any other very small ones that can go undetected can lead to major disaster if all the holes line up.

To paraphrase, " The price of safety is eternal vigilance" .
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