Emirates 777 - Auckland

[Shore Guy]

Lucky it wasn't a long haul flight.....around three hours to any of the cities listed in the article.....



Emirates 777 takeoff incident under investigation in New Zealand
By Leithen Francis
An Emirates Boeing 777 nearly collided with a truck and other equipment at the end of Auckland International Airport’s main runway on takeoff last month because the pilots were unaware that a section of the runway was being repaired.

New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) says it is investigating the incident, which occurred at around 16:15 on 22 March at Auckland airport.

“The 777… was taking off from the main runway, which had been shortened due to repair works underway at one end… The crew were not aware of the shortened runway,” it says.

This meant they “had to increase to maximum thrust during the takeoff when they noticed machinery working at the end of the runway ahead”.

It adds, “The aircraft cleared the work area by the permitted margin [and] nobody was injured.”
Equipment in the work area included a truck and a car, TAIC air accident investigator Peter Williams says in an emailed response to a query from ATI.

He says the “normal full-length operations on the runway in use, 05R, [in terms of] the declared accelerate-stop distance available (ASDA) is 3,623m (11,900ft)”.

But “the effective ASDA from taxiway A10 at the time of the incident was 2,170m.”
He says the runway work was scheduled between 19 March and 8 April and information about this was included in the Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS), the notice to airmen and the operator’s briefing package”.

Emirates operates daily between Auckland and Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

There have been instances in the past where passenger aircraft have hit large equipment while trying to take off. In October 2000, for example, a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 hit construction equipment on takeoff from a closed runway in Taipei resulting in 83 deaths.

Related articles: Holiday flight nearly collided with vehicles on Manchester runway after pilots ignored controller advice on shortened runway, report finds

[DrKev]

Maximum thrust? What does that mean? I always assumed that aircraft would use 100% thrust at almost all times. Can anyone explain under what conditions would an aircraft not use maximum thrust during take off?

Ta muchly!

[Another Number]

Choice of thrust level depends on a number of factors, including runway state.

With very high-powered engines, eg the GE90s for example on the 777s, there is enough room to use a lower setting in some situations, though for a while there was a DA against this due to the software problems.

Check the Tech forums - I'm sure the subjects been done in detail there. ;)

[Taildragger67]

This is getting a bigger run on this thread (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=272290).

Mods - care to merge the two threads?

[mutt]

As a B777 operator, approximately 90% of takeoffs use REDUCED takeoff thrust either with a fixed derate of 10% or the assumed temperature method (up to a 25% thrust reduction). Combining these methods you end up using approximately 65% of the available takeoff thrust.

The question that should be raised here, "what happened to the NOTAMS".


Mutt

[Re-Heat]

Maximum thrust? What does that mean? I always assumed that aircraft would use 100% thrust at almost all times. Can anyone explain under what conditions would an aircraft not use maximum thrust during take off?
Ta muchly!
Dr Kev - jet aircraft takeoff with flexed (or de-rated) thrust on almost all occassions, so as not to inflict excessive wear and tear on the engine that could otherwise damage it, if used at maximum thrust all the time. Taking into account the weight of the aircraft, temperature and runway length, thrust is calculated as what is safely required to get airborne.

Also known as de-rating, the manufacturer will separately de-rate an engine to a lower published thrust, or rather the computers regulating the engine will do so, so that a similar engine is used across a range of types, with a maximum thrust of x available for a particular variant of the same type.

[nolimitholdem]

The GE90's on a B777 rated at 115,000lb thrust/side can be de-rated by as much as 40% I believe...when the emergency AD came out that required only rated thrust takeoffs for a while they were quite a handful on short (light TOW) sectors....

[Dave Gittins]

The worst case of too low a de-rated thrust being used being the MK 747 at Halifax. Glad this one was quickly resolved.

For those not familiar with it's use, suggest that reading the report into the MK tragedy which will provide a full insight. There is a link to it on the MK 747 thread which can be readily searched.

DGG

[Stoic]

On the Classic 747 we were not permitted to use graduated (reduced) power in certain circumstances such as when there was a contaminated runway. A full power take off with a very light aircraft on a short sector, e.g. Boston to Philadelphia, could be exhilarating to say the least.

Stoic

[Danny]

DrKev, another simple analogy for the use of reduced thrust would be, do you put your foot to the floor every time you drive off in your car? Of course you probably don't, but you could!

On a jet aircraft, unless it is absolutely necessary, we use a derated take-off thrust. Just as in your car, if you were to drive off with maximum throttle, you would wear out the engine (and other associated bits and pieces) much quicker than if you use only the power that is needed rather than is available.

[MartinS]

I thought as well that reduced thrust would be used in most cases in all aircraft types. However, I was flying with a friend of mine in a Cessna 172, taking off from a 6900 foot runway and he used maximum power - we were in the air after rolling roughly 500 feet. I asked him about this, and he said that's what he has been taught to do, that it is safer to use maximum power and be in the air ASAP. Is this because it is a single-engine aircraft?

[Danny]

Please refer such questions to the 'Questions Forum (http://www.pprune.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=67)'. There is too much thread diversion and this reduced thrust issue is related to turbine jet engines.

[777SandMan]

For those that have not been to Auckland lately - the runway is being repaired while a/c are using it. This means that different approaches e.g with or without ILS etc are in force, according to very confusing Notams. Blue, yellow and white pages in the JEPP according to NOTAMS in force.

While using the airport, no mention is made of the fact that work has commenced. ceased etc. Would it not be nice if ATC could inform pilots either via ATIS or voice, of timings for the work. Confusing NOTAMS, total silence from ATC - recipe for disaster:ugh:

[belowMDA]

Sandman I haven't found them too hard to figure out. When in doubt you can always ask ATC and they will let you know.

[propaganda]

Surely, a simple ATIS message would just highlight the WIP. Lets face it, It's all our responsibility.Lets not finger point.....CRM !!!!!;)

[Heatseeker]

I've been planning flights out of AKL for more than 25 years (which is about as long as they have been digging the place up) and whilst their NOTAMs are VERY detailed and require a lot of reading in conjunction with the airport chart (or at least a briefing by a very well informed dispatacher) they DO contain ALL you need to know about their thousand year MOWP. It is all there and always has been. One thing that AKL do not normally do is publish a notam when the works are suspended however when this happens they normally publish the fact on the ATIS.
I suspect there was just too much information in the WIP NOTAMS for for anybody to fully get the picture in their head. For the last major WIP I was involved in Air Services NZ sent us a powerpoint presentation spelling the whole thing out in small words of few syllables and very well done it was too.
So glad nobody got hurt.
H

[Swamp Donkey]

The WIP was NOTAMed - and the crew were asked on ground freq as to whether they required full length which they declined - I suspect the NOTAMS were not read........?

[Few Cloudy]

So finally after sidetracks about RTT we get to the point - why were the crew "Unaware" of the WIP?

A BA ran into soft tar in the Carribean a while back - also unaware.

The whole NOTAM system is quite lousy, with additions and modifications and hidden goodies and does lead to people skimping their study of them. How about a plan to get the main points in as plain English headlines - details lower down?

RW25 reduced TORA/TODA ---- m due to WIP. LDG Dist Avbl ---- m.
Times... for instance.

By the way, the contractors are pretty trusting in calculated stop distances to be working on the end of a live runway. One day there will be an RTO and the graphs will be put to the test...

[EGGW]

Good airfields with ATIS, put performance related NOTAM information on every ATIS broadcast that any NOTAM maybe valid for.
The system in Auckland is very complex and bureaucratic. however there is a lot of different colour Jepp plates, that should give you a heads up that this place is somewhat different.
The fact that the WIP started between landing and take off didn't help with the BIG picture.
To the self righteous amongst you, are you so perfect ?? :mad: :mad:

EGGW

[8846]

You are absolutely right - there but for the grace of God go I....

But...I was once upon a time responsible for Cat 3 ILSs at a major UK airport. Everytime that we worked on the equipment (you will be glad to know!) we followed a strict protocol so that we never left the electronic equivalent of a 'spanner in the works' and the next fully laden 747 could use the equipment to descend to minimums in the fog without a shadow of a doubt as to the integrity of the ILS system. We were disciplined engineers...

After we have all learnt the nitty gritty of manhandling aeroplanes around the sky, it all becomes relatively hum drum and we can be lulled into thinking that every day is routine and we can skip the notam reading and weather info.... we've all done it.. I know I have..

Whether the crew in this instance did or did not read the notams or take them into account, we should, as disciplined professional pilots, make a mental note to ensure that we do tighten up our discipline in this area.

That, after all, is the reason for the sharing of this sort of information.:ok:

[portquartercv67]

This incident only highlights in my mind the necessity to change the format of notams in general. I am sure there are many goldenarms out there who "claim" to read them all. But wouldn't it be nice if the Human Performance engineers in conjunction with pilots and the regulating authorities could agree on a format that highlighted the "killer items" and separated them from the all nice to know stuff. doesn't mean we should not be responible for reading them all, but after all, our job is always one of prioritizing and there is only so much information that one can absorb. at least only so much that this average pilot can.

[Eliason]

To sort the Notams by necessity is a good idea - though it might vary what's important for the type of aircraft and/or operation you do...

What sometimes gets at me is when they don't clean out notams... some airports keep notams for ever. Example:

30 SEP 2005 16:11 UNTIL PERM INTERMEDIATE HOLDING POSITION T (TANGO) WITHDRAWN
LOWW - mark, the notam is from 2005!

You find many like this at some airports which sometimes makes it hard to spot the important ones... :hmm:

[Fix Info]

I can still recall a flight from Rome to Milan a few years ago, as part of a FCO-MXP-DXB flight. We had somewhere between 10-15 pages of Notams to go through for just FCO and MXP. None of us were particularly experienced flying in Italy, and therefore we had to actually slowly read through all of them. Due to the shortness of the sector, we couldn't read them in the air. You all know about the time pressure pre-departure. The situation seemed almost custom made for mistakes.

There's no proper Dispatch at EK, and therefore it's all non-abridged regular notams. Some dealt with ridiculous things like PPL-type speed control into MXP. The kind of stuff you learn about in your basic flying school. Please tell me how I'm supposed to be able to safeguard against missing important info among all the nonsense if I'm operating under those circumstances?

I know many french words to use for guys who point fingers and claim that us golden boys on the flight deck should be responsible and read all the material given to us. How come flight operations management don't take any responsibility and give us proper dispatchers? How come it's 2007 and we all still use a Notam system designed in the 1950s to minimize character transmissions? Where are the filters for all the gunk that's already published in the Jeppesens many months ago? Where are the graphics? Why can't the airport operators figure out that it's unsafe and inapropriate to shove tons of unnecessary information down the throats of throttle pushers?

We're human, and will make human errors. It's the responsibility of desk pushers to supply me with reasonable information both from a quantity and a quality point of view. If that's not happening, errors WILL take place, and safety WILL be compromised.

[SLFguy]

"desk pushers"


...big lads your Ops lot then?:uhoh:

[TE RANGI]

Kudos Fix Info

A thoughtful, accurate post, couldn't have put it better muself.

The Notam overload is not unique to EK. Many carriers have the same problem.

[propaganda]

Last company had notam'd WIP TORA/LDA reductions programmed into the OPS ( Hammerhead ) performance computers..not too difficult. Just an additional reminder and safeguard.
Bring back flight ops briefing officers...;)

[Mike773]

Where I work we have dispatch/flight ops officers at all online airports. It's up to us to go through the NOTAMs pages and highlight the important stuff. The crew get the entire volume (18-odd pages usually) so can read them for themselves if necessary later, but we only highlight relevant things (we ignore 34R/16L stuff at YSSY since 747s don't use it, for example). We also give them "painted" airport maps to show TWY closures etc. when there's something new.

So I hope propoganda's comment above continues to be heard by my company at least!! :}

[Dookie on Drums]

(we ignore 34R/16L stuff at YSSY since 747s don't use it, for example)

They don't??? :confused:

I think you'll find 747's have been known to use 34R/16L at YSSY although not common. :ok:

[Mike773]

Our Long-Haul 74's don't that's for sure. Can't speak for anyone else though. :)

[noip]

747 usage of 16L/34R at Sydney is unusual, but has happened on two occasions I'm aware of, both because of the closure of the longer runway.

There is an outstanding photo of QF5 at rotate, departing on 34R for Singapore .. 34L being blocked by an A340 with a hydraulic failure.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0260864/M

N

[Xeque]

I can't speak for the B7xx's and the A3xx's here but I can say that when I learned to fly at Bodmin (a few years ago now) I was taught to use full power until established in the climb and then reduce power to avoid unnecessary engine wear.
We operated off grass runways where moisture and length of grass was a consideration.
I currently fly out of Bang Phra (Chonburi Thailand) on a 900M asphalt runway. Trouble is we have a railway embankment right at the end of 23 with power lines at 150 feet or so just beyond that and a 1,000 ft mountain going the other way. (Check out Google Earth)
Consequently I firewall it to be sure I am off the ground and climbing by the 300M marker so that I know I can clear the obstacles. I don't reduce power until I am over the power lines or have made the left hand turn away from the mountain.
1 minute or so at full chat probably does reduce engine life a little but I would rather that than have less than full power available during take off.

[Mike773]

Sounds reasonable. Obstacles are always taken account when planning take-off power. For us, our Flight Ops system and FMC have the official obstacles for each runway programmed so when we type in the TOW, wind, runway condition etc. it gives us the V1, Vr, V2 results.

Not many obstacles like you describe though at the major airports we operate to though! :}

Back in the old days, HKG Kai Tak's 31 had a nice big hill to avoid straight ahead. :cool:

[Xeque]

Thats right. Turn left and out over the Stonecutters NDB yes?

[Few Cloudy]

Reduced take off Thrust - please observe Danny's remarks further up...
Subject in Question:
I used to work for an airline which tried to take the aggro out of official Notams by issuing a "predigested" tailored notam for the route.
This was a huge help but it meant that at least one man was fully employed just translating the notams into user friendly versions. And yes I know you can have a route specific Notam in many airports but they are not specific enough and not clear enough.
I was really swimmimng when I then worked for airlines without this service and had to go through the chicken cack by myself. I think this is the "normal" world of flying - but does it have to be?
The man who sieved through the official docs and made a nice user friendly plain English time saving summary for my old airline, could just have easily done this for the flying world in general.
How about a campaign to get this done generally - not too difficult in our digital world?
FC.

[Earthmover]

I went to an East European airport two years ago and when I went through Few Cloudy's beautifully expressive "chicken cack" , there was one buried in the actual airport NOTAMS in the local language forsooth. The rest were in English, just the one in Martian. Unacceptable - there was no possible way we could have known what it implied before we departed - there are not many interpreters hanging around my crew-room at 0500 and I didn't have time to nip back to a motorway service station to ask the serving girl, and there were no plumbers present. To this day I haven't a clue what it meant because I forgot to ask the despatcher when I got there, but we survived.

The whole system is 'pants' as poster after poster states here.

[nojwod]

Isn't it true that (perhaps in pre-software driven aircraft) that firewalling the throttles allowed more than 100% N1 or N2 thrust, which was technically available out of the engine but not good for it. I seem to recall a 'normal' figure for a 73 early series of 92 or 96% N1 (or was it N2) being the norm and the throttle was set accordingly. Correct me if I'm wrong it's been a while.

[Shore Guy]

I'm guessing this aircraft was fueled for it's three hour or so flight, but some airlines have tankering programs in effect. Does anyone know what the weights were for this flight?

My guess is if this aircraft had been fueled/loaded for a 10-12-14 hour flight, this might have been front page news.

[777SandMan]

No, minimum fuel is carried on this sector.

[TangoUniform]

C'mon boys and girls, use your heads. The NOTAM system is perfect in all respects. That is, it's perfect to protect the backsides of everyone except the pilots. "Captain, why didn't you read the NOTAM related to xyz on page 3 the forty fifth line down? It was right there in front of you." So the airport is covered, the dispatchers are covered, the managments are covered, the ATC system is covered. And of course you are covered if you can read jibberish at 3am in the morning and remember everything 7 hours later.

So why would anyone ever want to change it? It hangs the pilots out to dry, but everyone else is covered. Watch your six.

[Woof etc]

hmm. Brings to mind the Emirates Incident at Jhb a couple of years ago when one their A340s took out the approach lighting system on a reduced thrust take off.

[Mike773]

Tango...That's only in the crappy airlines! :}

As a flight ops/disptach person myself, where I work it is my responsibility to edit NOTAMs (for my airport and FIR) and give them a priority. Anything lower than 2 doesn't get printed in the breifing package. Priority 1 NOTAMs are highlighted with a grey background. (Crews can get the whole thing if they want, but I've never seen anyone ask for it.)

If I miss-edit something then it's my ass, not the captains! As far as I'm concerned, it's part of our job to cut through the crap (not just NOTAMs) and give the crew what they need. They seem to trust us pretty well, so we can't be doing too badly. :\

I agree that dumping 40 pages of 90% absolute crap in front the crew is just asking for trouble. Some airlines may be too lazy to have a proper NOTAM edit system in place, I suppose and then try the "but it was in the NOTAMs" line in case of trouble. I'm glad I don't work there.

I've got a DRM (Dispatch Resource Management) course coming up in a few months. I'm sure this kind of thing will be covered (again). :ok:

[Heatseeker]

Mike773

Obviously you don't need me to tell you the benefits of having a REAL ops dispatcher brief the crew on what they really need to know right now and what is less than relevant. I have always worked on the basis of "how would I like to be treated" in my briefings whether it is a face to face for a YSSY/YMML or via dispatch notes on a WSSS/EGLL.

I do remember one night I had so much to tell the chairman of the steering committee that I ended up saying on the flight plan "Captain - PHONE ME"
(He did)

Even when there is nothing to say at all I always tell them just that - after all, it's what I get paid for for.

I don't think you can ever over-emphasise the benefits of having a professional briefer available to you at sign on time however in my experience, Skippyjet airlines is one of the few non-american companies that have one.

Memo to airline management. How much will it cost to retrieve heavy metal out of the ****e.

As for the six million and fourteen notams in a normal package - my favourite is the American 747 cargo flight from YSSY to somewhere in Asia. Captain looks up and says "Hey, I see the parachute jumping at Biggin Hill is still on."

Pilot people - if you ever want me, just call.

H

[Mike773]

Yep. I hope the guys on the top floor of my company don't get any big ideas and decide to give us all the shaft one day! :\

One of the things I've learned is to adjust my briefing to the crew situation: new crew, never been to YSSY before (or not recently) then I'm pretty thorough. But some guys are here all the time and I don't need to point out that nothing works in the POM area enroute for example.

Quickest briefing was an American crew. They'd flown down the previous day but one so basically the NOTAM part of the briefing consisted of captain saying "Anything new?", me saying "Nope", captain saying "OK. We're done!" Others have taken more than 20 minutes.

I can't imagine what NOTAMs would be like "unfiltered"; must be hell! Every day I remove all the "HN" NOTAMs and stuff that's not in our time window. Leave what is necessary. Priority 1 all the big stuff (RWY closures, major TWY closures, ILS out etc.), priority 2 the other things (TWYs closed but not on our taxi route etc.).

To all the pointy-end people: Don't forget to tell your bosses you need/want us dispatch people! :) (Unless you don't want us, of course :ugh: ;) )

[Heatseeker]

Mike773

We have a nice feature in our NOTAM system. It looks at the ETD & ETA and if a NOTAM falls into these times the crew get it. If it falls outside then it's filtered out.

Not too foul for a bush airline eh ;)

H

[Mike773]

Yeah. Ours does that too, but the window is usually pretty large so often the HN stuff gets in too. Particularly since the system does seem to have info about when sunrise is, so I suppose it just includes everything. YSSY notams about Taxiway closures etc. often go on for days but are "HN" only so our NOTAM system sticks them in since the time is technically a 24-hour period.

I must talk to someone about that. Then it would automatically block the HN stuff since we don't arrive in the dark anyway. Thanks for the idea! :) Sounds like your system is better than ours -- and we're a major! :hmm:

[Wiley]

From a parallel thread on the Dunnunda page:C'mon guys... someone tell us: if a LLZR is NOTAMED as being unusable outside 25 degrees off runway heading, how do you use it at 24 degrees off runway heading - or 15 degrees?(This was in reaction to a post from "MTOW" that read: "While we're all enjoying a NOTAM kicking fest, can anyone explain to me what it means when I read repeatedly in my NOTAMS that "the ILS LLZR for R/W xxx is unusable outside 25 degrees"? My question is: how in the hell do you use an ILS LLZR 24 - or even 10 - degrees off QDM? I'm obviously missing something and am sure I'll be put straight by someone within five minutes of posting.")

[Shore Guy]

All,
I’m on the safety committee at our airline and am writing an article (in house pub) on this incident. Not out to bash Emirates…primarily focusing on the confusing issue of NOTAMs and how they are disseminated.
If anyone has additional information on this, please post or contact me directly. I’m particularly interested in how Emirates does their performance calculations……EFB, paper, numbers ACAR from dispatch……
Also there was a previous reference to fatigue on this sector – any details.
Thanks in advance.

[QCM]

So any journalist pretending being in a safety commitee can get confidential information from an airline on this forum? Doesn't sounds good to me!:=

[Shore Guy]

Well, if anyone is uncomfortable posting on the forum, contact me privately and I'll give you my airline association e-mail address to reply.