1972 VC10 abort due tyre burst with fatal results
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1972 VC10 abort due tyre burst with fatal results
https://aviation-safety.net/database...?id=19720418-1
Full Report:
http://www.tcaa.go.tz/files/final%20...S%20ABBABA.pdf
CASA recently published free copies of the 2017 Collectors' Edition of Flight Safety Australia. There are 168 pages of good gen for all pilots. One chapter is called "1972 - The Year of Flying Dangerously" and lists three pages of selected passenger crashes of 1972.
Pilots born in that year would be 46 years of age by now. Unless they are interested in old accident reports to further their professional development (even less likely among the younger generation of pilots), few would know about the tragic accident that occurred to an East African Airways VC10 that crashed at Addis Ababa following a high speed aborted take off on 18 April 1972. The cause of the accident was a burst nose-wheel tyre and severe vibration as the VC10 reached VR. The captain decided to abort the take off and applied full reverse and maximum braking. The aircraft over-ran the end of the runway and into a gulley and burst into flames. Some passengers escaped from the burning wreckage but were caught by a barbed wire fence and unable to escape a stream of burning fuel that flowed down the gulley.
The subsequent investigation revealed that despite maximum braking being applied, not only did one main tyre burst but other wheels were not receiving full braking capability due to a servicing error which routed the anti-skid systems to the wrong tyres resulting in major loss of braking capability.
The direct cause of the original nose wheel tyre burst was the nose-wheel hitting a small lifting jack pad that had inadvertently been left on the runway centreline that night by the pilot of a Cessna single. Read the full investigation report.
At the risk of hindsight, it could be argued that aborting because of sudden unexplained heavy vibration near V1 was unnecessary and thus a contributory cause of the accident. One wonders if it was that accident that was the catalyst for today's advice in Boeing and other manufacturer's operational manuals that aborting at speeds above 80 knots and prior to V1 the takeoff should only be rejected for any of the following:
Fire or fire warning.
Engine failure.
Predictive windshear.
If the aircraft is unsafe or unable to fly.
Having said that, the VC10 abort may have been successful had full braking capability had been achieved. But unfortunately it wasn't achieved because of faulty maintenance as you will read if you have the time and inclination to read the full final report. Think of it as increasing your professional development...
Some 30 years ago McDonnell Douglas published advice that any abort due to a tyre failure should not be attempted at speeds in excess of V1 minus 20 knots. This is because of loss of braking capability making V1 invalid. .
The inadvertent cross wiring of the anti-skid system discovered during the VC10 investigation was not discovered earlier,simply because it is rare for pilots to apply maximum anti-skid braking during landing in the course of normal line flying. This may have been one reason why the degradation of braking efficiency did not come to light earlier.
Readers may ponder on an incident to this writer when he was flying a Boeing 737-200 in the early 1980's from Guam to Ponape (now Pohnpei) in the Caroline Islands https://www.google.com.au/search?sou....0.B7DwQgGswJ4
with destination Nauru.
The aircraft had been at Hong Kong for scheduled servicing and a crew flew the aircraft from Hong Kong - Taipei - Guam. Guam and Taipei have very long runways. Thus very little braking after landing is required. I took over the 737 for the Guam -Pohnpei -Nauru flight. It was SOP for the pilot to conduct a walk around inspection. Part of that inspection is to check the tyres and brakes. The brake temperatures were checked by waving a hand between the brake units for excessive heat. As expected when I did the walk around at Guam the brakes were warm but not unusually so. Some of the pilots were known to be "lead footed" and it was when taking over the aircraft I was aware if a "lead-footer" had done the previous landing.
We then flew to Pohnpei where the runway was relatively short (6000 feet) and coral based. There were puddles of rain on the surface. During refuelling I did a walk around and waved my hand near the brakes. The left landing gear was quite warm as expected and the right landing gear less so. There had been no asymmetric pull during the braking roll and in any case the thrust reversers had done their job well; meaning heavy braking had been unnecessary. Nevertheless I felt mildly concerned about the brake temperature difference. I rationalised maybe we had passed through puddles or rain with the right hand wheels and cooled the brakes.
The length of the runway at Nauru was only 5200 feet and no over-run areas. At least we had maintenance people there. It was normal at Nauru to apply full reverse on touchdown and moderate to hard braking. There was no autobrakes on the 737-200 and no brake temperature gauges. On disembarking at Nauru and before handing over to the incoming crew, I did a quick walk around check of the brake temperatures expecting them all to be relatively hot. Again there had been no pull to one side during braking that I was aware of.
All brakes except the outboard on the right set of wheels were hot. The outboard brakes of the right landing gear were still stone cold from the flight from Pohnpei. I wrote up the snag and informed maintenance. Investigation revealed the hydraulic line to that brake assembly had been locked off. As far as I can recall it was not established when that occurred. It might have happened during the last servicing at Hong Kong Kong. On the other hand it could have occurred on a previous servicing before that and the aircraft would have flown for a month with a u/s right outboard wheel brake and being dual wheels, never picked up. Fortunately there had been no malfunction requiring a high speed abort for all that time.
I suppose the lesson for all pilots is that it is not always possible to check if all the brakes are serviceable; especially those aircraft with multi-tyres.
Full Report:
http://www.tcaa.go.tz/files/final%20...S%20ABBABA.pdf
CASA recently published free copies of the 2017 Collectors' Edition of Flight Safety Australia. There are 168 pages of good gen for all pilots. One chapter is called "1972 - The Year of Flying Dangerously" and lists three pages of selected passenger crashes of 1972.
Pilots born in that year would be 46 years of age by now. Unless they are interested in old accident reports to further their professional development (even less likely among the younger generation of pilots), few would know about the tragic accident that occurred to an East African Airways VC10 that crashed at Addis Ababa following a high speed aborted take off on 18 April 1972. The cause of the accident was a burst nose-wheel tyre and severe vibration as the VC10 reached VR. The captain decided to abort the take off and applied full reverse and maximum braking. The aircraft over-ran the end of the runway and into a gulley and burst into flames. Some passengers escaped from the burning wreckage but were caught by a barbed wire fence and unable to escape a stream of burning fuel that flowed down the gulley.
The subsequent investigation revealed that despite maximum braking being applied, not only did one main tyre burst but other wheels were not receiving full braking capability due to a servicing error which routed the anti-skid systems to the wrong tyres resulting in major loss of braking capability.
The direct cause of the original nose wheel tyre burst was the nose-wheel hitting a small lifting jack pad that had inadvertently been left on the runway centreline that night by the pilot of a Cessna single. Read the full investigation report.
At the risk of hindsight, it could be argued that aborting because of sudden unexplained heavy vibration near V1 was unnecessary and thus a contributory cause of the accident. One wonders if it was that accident that was the catalyst for today's advice in Boeing and other manufacturer's operational manuals that aborting at speeds above 80 knots and prior to V1 the takeoff should only be rejected for any of the following:
Fire or fire warning.
Engine failure.
Predictive windshear.
If the aircraft is unsafe or unable to fly.
Having said that, the VC10 abort may have been successful had full braking capability had been achieved. But unfortunately it wasn't achieved because of faulty maintenance as you will read if you have the time and inclination to read the full final report. Think of it as increasing your professional development...
Some 30 years ago McDonnell Douglas published advice that any abort due to a tyre failure should not be attempted at speeds in excess of V1 minus 20 knots. This is because of loss of braking capability making V1 invalid. .
The inadvertent cross wiring of the anti-skid system discovered during the VC10 investigation was not discovered earlier,simply because it is rare for pilots to apply maximum anti-skid braking during landing in the course of normal line flying. This may have been one reason why the degradation of braking efficiency did not come to light earlier.
Readers may ponder on an incident to this writer when he was flying a Boeing 737-200 in the early 1980's from Guam to Ponape (now Pohnpei) in the Caroline Islands https://www.google.com.au/search?sou....0.B7DwQgGswJ4
with destination Nauru.
The aircraft had been at Hong Kong for scheduled servicing and a crew flew the aircraft from Hong Kong - Taipei - Guam. Guam and Taipei have very long runways. Thus very little braking after landing is required. I took over the 737 for the Guam -Pohnpei -Nauru flight. It was SOP for the pilot to conduct a walk around inspection. Part of that inspection is to check the tyres and brakes. The brake temperatures were checked by waving a hand between the brake units for excessive heat. As expected when I did the walk around at Guam the brakes were warm but not unusually so. Some of the pilots were known to be "lead footed" and it was when taking over the aircraft I was aware if a "lead-footer" had done the previous landing.
We then flew to Pohnpei where the runway was relatively short (6000 feet) and coral based. There were puddles of rain on the surface. During refuelling I did a walk around and waved my hand near the brakes. The left landing gear was quite warm as expected and the right landing gear less so. There had been no asymmetric pull during the braking roll and in any case the thrust reversers had done their job well; meaning heavy braking had been unnecessary. Nevertheless I felt mildly concerned about the brake temperature difference. I rationalised maybe we had passed through puddles or rain with the right hand wheels and cooled the brakes.
The length of the runway at Nauru was only 5200 feet and no over-run areas. At least we had maintenance people there. It was normal at Nauru to apply full reverse on touchdown and moderate to hard braking. There was no autobrakes on the 737-200 and no brake temperature gauges. On disembarking at Nauru and before handing over to the incoming crew, I did a quick walk around check of the brake temperatures expecting them all to be relatively hot. Again there had been no pull to one side during braking that I was aware of.
All brakes except the outboard on the right set of wheels were hot. The outboard brakes of the right landing gear were still stone cold from the flight from Pohnpei. I wrote up the snag and informed maintenance. Investigation revealed the hydraulic line to that brake assembly had been locked off. As far as I can recall it was not established when that occurred. It might have happened during the last servicing at Hong Kong Kong. On the other hand it could have occurred on a previous servicing before that and the aircraft would have flown for a month with a u/s right outboard wheel brake and being dual wheels, never picked up. Fortunately there had been no malfunction requiring a high speed abort for all that time.
I suppose the lesson for all pilots is that it is not always possible to check if all the brakes are serviceable; especially those aircraft with multi-tyres.
Last edited by Centaurus; 2nd Mar 2018 at 12:33.
The Concord crash of July 2000 has echoes of the VC10 accident. Debris on the runway, tyre burst, degraded braking due to improper maintenance. Had the VC10 continued and the Concord aborted, the outcomes may have been different.
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Contact CASA. My order arrived within three days of my sending in the paperwork. The only cost was $15 for the postage.
Order a copy of the magazine now <https://mailinglist.casa.gov.au//lt....88sKV0Qw0t5m21
Order a copy of the magazine now <https://mailinglist.casa.gov.au//lt....88sKV0Qw0t5m21
Folks,
A very similar DC-10 abort past V1 in Spain had similar results, the aircraft departed the end of the runway at quite high speed and into a camping ground. If my memory serves me correctly, it hit a number of gas bottles that exploded, adding to the carnage. Again, as I recall, the "vibration" was a blown nose wheel tyre.
Reinforces the general rules to not abort over, say, 80 kts for other than a major failure, and never after V1 unless the aircraft will not fly.
Boeing makes it very clear that their fine products go better than they stop, although the stopping performance has improved with each successive type.
Tootle pip!!
A very similar DC-10 abort past V1 in Spain had similar results, the aircraft departed the end of the runway at quite high speed and into a camping ground. If my memory serves me correctly, it hit a number of gas bottles that exploded, adding to the carnage. Again, as I recall, the "vibration" was a blown nose wheel tyre.
Reinforces the general rules to not abort over, say, 80 kts for other than a major failure, and never after V1 unless the aircraft will not fly.
Boeing makes it very clear that their fine products go better than they stop, although the stopping performance has improved with each successive type.
Tootle pip!!
Thread Starter
although the stopping performance has improved with each successive type.
Tootle pip!!
Tootle pip!!
