Love your work Jack!
Avherald covered this with zero fanfare and zilch overdramatization
:
Incident: Qantas B763 at Brisbane on Jan 31st 2013, tail scrape on takeoff
By Simon Hradecky, created Friday, Feb 1st 2013 21:45Z, last updated Friday, Feb 1st 2013 21:45Z
A Qantas Boeing 767-300, registration VH-ZXF performing flight QF-545 from Brisbane,QL to Sydney,NS (Australia), was rotating for takeoff from Brisbane's runway 01 when the tail of the aircraft contacted the runway surface. The crew continued the takeoff, stopped the climb at 3000 feet and returned to Brisbane for a safe landing 01 about 15 minutes after departure.
The airline confirmed a very minor tail strike. All passengers were rebooked onto other flights.
Following checks the aircraft departed Brisbane about 3 hours after landing as flight QF-6124 to Sydney and resumed service the following morning.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/QFA545/history/20130131/0625Z/YBBN/YSSY
Ben also puts an interesting spin on this event:
ATSB doesn’t list Qantas tail strike, lists Virgin incident
A Qantas jet has a scary takeoff, kissing runway with tail, ATSB does nothing. A Virgin Australia jet has scary landing at Gold Coast, acquaplanes down runway, ATSB investigates. Huh!
In an election year it’s quite clear no-one in government or opposition really gives a damn about questionable standards in air safety investigations in this country.
And this is not about the we-are-safe piffle that comes out of both sides, which is part of the not-giving-a-damn ritual.
It is about the ATSB failing to list a tail strike by a Qantas 767 departing Brisbane airport on 31 January, but notifying an inquiry into a Virgin Australia wind shear and acquaplaning incident on landing at the Gold Coast airport in atrocious weather on 28 January.
Both incidents are referenced with more detail on the Aviation Herald site under its entries for 1 February.
In the Virgin Australia incident the pilot regained control of the 737 after it slid briefly out of control down the runway. In the Qantas incident the detail in the Aviation Herald report suggests this was a minor, non damaging incident handled correctly by the airline.
Which while reassuring is beside the point. When any airliner makes contact with the runway with its tail during take off, that is, metal touches tarmac at significant velocity, it’s charter requires it to statistically record and notify of the incident, because statistics, patterns, and associations of various elements of flight is a key part of its role in support of air safety in Australia.
It says so in its own material.
For an organisation whose integrity and trustworthiness is up for attention by a Senate Committee inquiry into its allegedly dishonest, deceitful and inappropriate final report into the Pel-Air crash of an air ambulance near Norfolk Island in 2009 leaving out a scary takeoff incident by one Australian airline while investigating a scary landing by another isn’t right.
The short odds would be on the ATSB also investigating the Qantas incident, and blaming administrative lag for not listing it, which in itself, is unacceptable.
Qantas tail strike, no safety action, Virgin slide, inquiry! | Plane Talking
I assume the Red Rat has reported the incident to the ATSB?? So what gives?
