SQ286 return to AKL with tail strike damage.
 

SQ 286 AKL-SIN had a nasty tail-strike this afternoon.
From radio news :yuk: they returned after 20mins.

The rest was crap, so will wait for something non-sensational to be put out.

It is very significant damage. The last 8 metres of the bottom of the fuselage ripped away. APU doors gone. Wires and pipes dangling. First approach approach overshot centreline and had to be aborted. He did an orbit and overshot again but by not as much and landed. The aircraft will be in Auckland for months.

So succinctly , and correctly put by C1300, the reporting on TV was absolute crap. The aircraft has sustained some considerable damage from scraping the tail on rotation, but there was no fire.

The first announcement from the Captain apparently was that they were returning to Christchurch, "in a few minutes"!! Quite an achievement considering they had just taken off from Auckland!:rolleyes:

Well I saw flames Sam.

Kooka. I noticed that he overshot the second approach as well.

VERY lucky not to have gone off the end from what I witnessed.

A Boeing 747 with nearly 400 people on board has been forced to make an emergency landing in Auckland after it caught fire.

The tail of the Singapore Airlines plane scraped the tarmac on take-off from Auckland International Airport on Wednesday afternoon.

The airline says the aircraft was forced to circle the airport and dump fuel while ground crews assessed the damage.

It then made an emergency landing.

About a dozen ambulances and fire trucks were on standby, but the airline says the plane landed safely and no one was hurt.

About 30 flights were distrupted as airport staff swept the runways clear of debris.

All those aboard were evacuated once it came to a stop, and no injuries have been reported.

(ONE News sourced from TVNZ, RNZ, Reuters and AAP)

The NZ Herald seems to have got it right which is rather refreshing considering the usual standard of avaition reporting.

It was a tail strike .... nothing more .... nothing less


The Singapore Airlines 747-400 with a damaged tail. Picture / Kenny Rodger

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydispl...ection=general

Airline denies fire caused emergency landing

12.03.2003
7.50pm
Despite eye-witness accounts of flames shooting from the back of a Singapore Airlines jet which made an emergency landing at Auckland International Airport today, the airline denies fire was involved.

The Boeing 747-400, carrying 368 passengers and 20 crew departed at 3.28pm this afternoon bound for Singapore, but apparently struck its tail on the runway on take-off.

In a statement released this afternoon, Singapore Airlines said it appeared the tail strike triggered a fire alarm in the cockpit.

However, there was "no information to suggest that the fire warning light was triggered by an actual fire", the statement said.

However, eye-witnesses interviewed by TV3 news this evening said they saw flames of up to 3m coming from the tail of the aircraft as it circled above the runway.

Singapore Airlines said the aircraft was in the air for about 20 minutes before it could land again.

The plane was then moved to a remote bay where passengers disembarked.

"No passengers or crew were injured in the incident or the landing."

The plane was under the command of an experienced crew, including a captain with 20 years' experience, the airline said.

The airline would "co-operate fully" with authorities investigating the incident.

Another aircraft was to be flown from Sydney to Auckland later tonight to operate the flight.

In a statement issued by the Transport Accident Investigation Commission, John Mockett, chief investigator of accidents, said an investigation would determine the causes and circumstances of the accident "for the purpose of preventing similar occurrences in future".

The investigation would include inspection of the aircraft and its cargo, interviews with flight and ground crews, and may take some months.

The investigator in charge, Ken Mathews, would travel to Auckland tomorrow morning.

About 20 flights out of Auckland were delayed because of the incident, which closed the runway for just over an hour.

Auckland International Airport CEO John Goulter said the runway was closed from about 4.50pm to 5.50pm to allow a full inspection to be carried out.

"We had to ensure that there was nothing on the runway, like pieces of debris, which could have posed a danger for other aircraft."

All flights had been rescheduled successfully, he said.

"It's not a big drama, it's just part of the business."

- NZPA

Well I didn't see the actual tail strike but I witnessed the aircraft from when it was downwind and the attempts to land.
The aircraft did not dump any fuel and so would have landed in the region of 100T over Max Landing weight. They did not evacuate the aircraft immediately as reported. Pax remained on board for around 25 - 30 minutes after landing and were off loaded at the layover stand by the international terminal.
The aircraft went well through the centreline on the two aborted attempts to land and was circling in the region of 500 - 700 feet AGL in my opinion.
Very scary that's for sure. I was fearing the worst for a while.

I thought the orbit was at a very low altitude. Below the altitude for a normal visual circuit. No one was evacuated. The aircraft was asked to shut down to allow a tow in after the fire officers observed the damage.

well cuz, the boy up da front will be an f/o now for sure.

i bet he was massey trained and that's why he pulled off the great landing. just don't mention the takeoff bit, aye.;)

GAMAN

Overweight landing are only permitted in an emergency.

An overweight landing does not present a safety hazard. The normal rate of descent is approx. 120ft/min. Aircraft are certified to 360ft/min for max structural takeoff weight and to 600ft/min ar max landing weight. It is therefore possible to perform an overweight landing with a rate of descent less than 360ft/min without risk of damage. An engineering inspection is required following any overweight landing.

(From study notes)

OUCH!!


http://images.tvnz.co.nz/news/accide...sma_120303.jpg

And the reporting has started!!


Channel 7 news reported, "the passengers on board witnessed flames 3 metres long coming from the tail!"


How the hell did they see that??

Some thoughts:

That is one severe tailscrape

Possible causes (pure speculation - ouch!):

- Gross miss setting of the stab of the aircraft causing very light stick forces - unlikely becase the green band warning would come on. The B744 also has a bias in the elevator feel to account for forward Cof G.

- Gross miss loading of the aircraft - 20 to 30 tonnes heavier than the loadsheet or loaded outside of the C of G envelope (not reflected on the loadsheet).

-Gross error in entering performance data into the Flight management computer i.e. enetering a weight much lighter than the loadsheet.(see next point)

-Gross miscalculation or setting of Take off data i.e rotating 20 kts or so early- don't know if this data is uplinked to the a/c in SQ or worked out by the crew.

- Severe windshear recovery manouever - Boeing says if you encounter severe windshear on the takeoff roll (speed loss) rotate 2000' before the end of the runway scraping the tail if need be to achieve liftoff. Any clues on Auckland WX today?

- Overly rapid rotation say 4 degrees per second plus - You wouldn't think a twenty year Capt. would do that in the absence of any other factors. If VR was correct then lift off would still have been almost immediate with minimal damage - this thing looks like it has been dragged on the RWY for quite a distance.

- I f this happened in SIN you wouldn't have heard about it


I guess we'll have to wait for the NZCAA report in six months to find out what really happened.




:confused:

It's all over now GAMAN, it's OK, you'll be fine. :rolleyes:

There is a tad more than your "routine" tail scrape in this one.

Prof Reason et al where are you?

Hey Dee............you forgot the most obvious one!!! Mis setting of the Take Off Flap...or perhaps not setting it at all??

This from the 'people in glass houses' file. ;)

Show us your LOSA results again!?!?! :E :}

Minosavy:

Possibly, but if the flaps weren't at ten or twenty they would get a config warning as they advanced the thrust. Setting flap 10 with speeds set to flap 20 at heavy weight might just do it.:(

(For the Kiwi Boys)

Gee, Peter Clark must have been on board for it to return safely!

And the go-around I saw was with the 747 at 90 degrees to the runway!!! Go Figure!

And listen to what the passengers had to say.....

" When we took off I instantly knew the plane was dragging.
I was on the side with the engine and I could hear it making
grunting noises like it was straining."

and

" There was no power, there wasn't enough thrust and I
think the pilot grounded the rear to get enough air under
the wings."

:eek: :eek: :eek: (sourse- NZ Herald)