One of or Captain used to land wit very high pitch,much more than the 12° limit in our books. Once after grounding we had alarm "TAIL CONE".
Memory item was to verify if we lost the tail cone. The Captain answerd :"No matter, it is a false alarm".
I said him again "TAIL CONE" and "we have to verify the tail cone who perhaps is on the RWY". He still was sure it was a false alarm
, but as I insisted he called the Chief of the Cabin Crew to verify we still had the tail cone, sure it would be a false alarm
. He called the TWR to inform them we were staying on the Runway to verify the false alarm
. When the stewardess came back she was laughing and said "we are in a decapotable ".
At low speed and high pitch our MD-82 conic shaped tail-cone failed. The new beaver shaped tail-cone of our MD-83s staid connected by a forward depression/lift in the same situation. A truck searched the tail-cone (big and heavy !) in the gras beside the runway where the tail-cone had been rolling. The Tower did not see the tail-cone going away hiden by the fuselage...
Our plane manual said a tail strike risk exist on landing with more than 12° pitch In fact it was the emergency escape removable tail cone (pulling a handle pulling a connection wire) who was going away.