Tail strike at Faro
 

Yesterday (14 Jun), on the afternoon, there was a tail strike from a Monarch A321. You could see some sparks coming out of his back end, which led to the intervention of the fire crew (although nothing more happened). Passengers came out ok. The Co-pilot was obviously upset, for he was the PF.
Everyone who flew A321 , knows how easy it is to do such a thing. Hope that everything goes well for the PF...

Do you think there might be an interview - tea, no biscuits, then?

Only tea but no biscuits...

Go immediately to the Fragrant Harbour thread on the CX A340-300 tailstrike that happened in January...then go and check the oleos.

Suppose your name says it all, unwise......

Ah, I see the previous post to which I was referring has been removed. Good.

Is that the back end of the F/O or the aircraft???

Yeah I know the F/O in question..... He was a good man!

He still is a good man.

Yeah that's what I meant

I thought so ;)

were you like brothers at flight school ?

Those Crazy Dutch, and their wacky humour :p :p

EGGW.

I heard some rumours that it was indeed out of the F/O:s behind that sparks were flying....

take off or landing?

It was on the landing phase.

is it that easy to strike a 321 in landing? I thought it was the TO that was critical...

probably both hu?

Unfortunately this can be done very easily on the A321 especially on landing. The autothrust computers are not always aggressive enough and allow the speed to decay. This results in high sink rates close to the ground sometimes causing a bounce and its usually on the second touchdown that can cause a strike.

MF

thanx for the info man...:ok:

Monarch was the last UK airline to have a clean sheet until yesterday, all other UK operators of 321's have had tailstrikes.
And as usual with 321 tailstrikes low houred F/O handling, see AAIB bulletins for details.

EGGW

Not the crime of the century. I hope the individual is not hung out to twist in the wind here.

An internal investigation and a bit of re-training if necessary.

It has happened to some very experienced pilots over the years.

For the record. GB have had 3 X 321 for a few years now and have not had a tailstrike yet .

Well GB still have time! The A321 is one of those aeroplanes that can bite. In my company we fly A320, A321 and A330. I only get to fly the A321 every now and then, normally line training flights! Hence very wary of the beast. All to easy to smack the tail on take-off or landing.

Also hope the crew were treated fairly, this is an aeroplane with a reputation. Agree with the comments on auto thrust the newer A320's with CFM and the A330 also have problems with slow to respond auto thrust. Airbus have just published a new blue bulletin that covers the subject. At last they have recomended what many of us have been doing for a while.

Also the A321 flies down the approach very close to VLS so not a lot of room for error near the ground if it gets slow and the autothrust does not respond quickly. The tail strikes we have had have been blamed on the auto thrust being out. I think the real problem is airbus have pushed leaving the auto thrust in for so long guys now struggle with it out. When the work load increases mistakes are then made.

Lovely to hear this Man Flex.......

"The autothrust computers are not always aggressive enough and allow the speed to decay. This results in high sink rates close to the ground sometimes causing a bounce and its usually on the second touchdown that can cause a strike."

Rather be on a 757 after after that comment!!!

:}

Spy,

"Also the A321 flies down the approach very close to VLS so not a lot of room for error"

VLS is computed by a different computer to the IAS and Airbus have now confirmed that the small amount of space between the two is not a problem!?

Haven't scraped the tail of an A321 yet but never say never. My advise (for what it's worth) is leave the power on for a little longer after the 'retard' and accept a hard landing if it's all falling apart.

Good luck to the Monarch crew.

On the 321 i was always taught to be called a retard twice before bringing the levers back. I don't listen to the callout much now just make sure all is well and if sink rate builds up just knock the levers slightly forward of the climb gate to get more power for a second or so and then retard. When i am a trainer!!!!!!!!!!!! I will teach to look at what's going on as well as listen to the callout as IMHO some trainers put too much emphasis on automatics in the bus.

Why didn't the captain call pitch so the f/o could flatten the attitude at the specified 7.5 degrees??

Sounds like there won't be a 322 then?

why do all the incidents to monarch aircraft happen at faro??? Check out airliners.net /incidents, and you'll see more

Be careful. Below 100ft radalt the autothrust will disconnect if you do that, so make sure you do retard fully, as you said, or power will keep increasing. It's one of the "gothchas".

I'm sure you have all the best of intent but you cant teach a person with 150 hrs on light aircraft to fly an aircraft of the proportions of the A321 relying on automatics and when push comes to shove you expect him to make a perfect intervention..
It's just not possible, I'm sure people in Toulouse will tell you otherwise but if an aeroplane relies on automatics to the extent that the bus does either you throw out the pilot or you put a properly qualified airman in the hut..

I've never flown the bus myself but i would assume there would be a mode where the PILOT can command what the engines are doing.. If the autothrottle isn't doing what you want, atleast in my kit you can disconnect it and fly it by using old fashioned piloting skills...

Where we go from here is not up to me to decide but I used to be a very proud airman, I take great joy and pride in being a skilled professional..
There is a firm in southern france that is certainly working towards a pilotless aircraft, it would be the joy of the industry if it would come true. Imagine the savings an airline could make by not having pilots employed.. By doing so I'm quite sure incidents as the quote above describes (where the automatics is slow) would be far more common.
My intention has never been to turn this into an Airbus v Boeing debate, I just would like to make a point of not letting the industry make us all redundant. I firmly believe there should be two pilots up front making the decisions rather than a computer calling the shots for you..

Crash-helmet on... Preparing to be flamed, mortared, shelled to oblivion...

top banana mate!

we dont need more low hour wonderbus-pilots around....

I've got me helmet on..... :}

Why are we not surprised...
 

Junior birdmen combined with an automated aircraft that can't decide what the engine power should be at a particular time is usually a very bad combination...:* :ooh:

Brenoch- on the `bus you can actually just disconnect the autothrust and fly with manual thrust. Very simple and it should be done more often than it is.
Too much reliance on the automatics sometimes I think. Especially on those really rough days:uhoh:

Whats interesting is that according to the very knowledgable..."spy"... these tail strikes have occured when and been blamed on the Auto-Thrust being disconnected.

If you are referring the BA's "Banning of Man Thr", then yes, their "logic" might lead to this conclusion... Of course, that was applying BA's proportion of Man Thr usage (quoted as 10%) and applying it to other operators' incidents to the A321 (when BA don't [yet] have the 321).

If other operators, for reasons various, tended to use Man Thr, then this part of the BA argument is obviously flawed.

Well, the first aircraft in BA banned from Man Thr was the 777....

This is being quoted by people various as a "technique" (including Trainers). I have never done it, never been taught it, never seen it in a manual. Doesn't mean I won't do it, but in short, if you do need it, I trust you MOR the ATHR as u/s as well. As has also been alluded, applying "common sense" or "I heard about this" solutions to flying the 'Bus (or in fact any aircraft) can lead you into all sorts of holes!

NoD

???????
 

Bent Engel
I'm sorry but I think your a bit full of yourself, everyone has to start somewhere..... Maybe you didn't get a chance when you had 170 hrs or so. Maybe you worked your arse of till you had a bezillion hours....
But some of us did, so how about giving us a chance instead of slagging us (Low timers) off!!

cheerio

NoD,

I knew of the 777 but in which other aircraft does BA not allow manual thrust? I recall the A320 being mentioned but I didn’t think the “ban” had been implemented.

Cheers,
HaM

The A321 does indeed get rather slow in the last hundred feet or so and the subsequent landing reflects this.

Solution : add two or three knots to Vapp in the performance approach page. Although not an SOP everyone in my company does this and we have never had an incident (yet).

Brenoch

Like your machine you can disconnect the thrust on the airbus and control it manually.

A bit about the airbus

Firstly the autothrust is computed by the FMGC which is based on a speed called VLS (Lowest achievable speed with the autothrust engaged) and this also takes into account the wind. On an average day you get VLS + 5 kts called Vapp. This VLS is computed by the FMGC based upon what ZFW + FOB we pilots enter.

There are also 2 other computers called FAC (flight Augmentation Computers), these are responsible for many things but also independently compute VLS. This computation is based on Angle of Attack Sensors and the ability to compute the aircraft weight.

So as you can see VLS is calculated by 2 different algorithms and the latter is probably prone to less errors (i.e ZFW is calculated with standard pax weights).

The problem arises on approach if you check PFD (speed scale) you can sometimes see only 2 or 3 kts between VLS & Vapp. If you look on the Perf App page on the MCDU the difference between VLS & Vapp is still 5 Kts. The autothrust doesnt add thrust because as far as its concerned the thrust is ok.

You will be pleased to know that airbus have now tried to use the same algorithm for both calcs (A319).

I have flown the A319/A320/A321/A340 and i have seen on many occasions (more so on A321) as you pass through 50 ft or so and accompanied with changing wind speed or direction and a different VLS from FMGC you can easily get a high sink rate when very close to ground.

At this stage there is very little you can do, you can overflare in an attempt to reduce this which i think is a bad idea because you can scrape the tail v easily.

Grin and accept it

If you disconnect the autotrust you get full climb power because the levers are in the climb detent

Airbus has procedure whereby you quickly advance the thrust levers passed the climb detent to spool the engines up and then back to climb. You have to be very careful with this procedure because if you do this below 100 feet when you select climb thrust you get full climb power because the autothrust disconnects.

Go around - but you have low energy and are close to ground.

or as man flex says add a few kts (which is what i do)

BTW we are not related.


So as you can see this really isnt black or white.

MF

Have not flown the A321 for a few years, but I also remember adding a few knots on the Approach page, to counteract this discrepancy, so that you could still use Managed speed for landing. (only if runway length not limiting). Before pigeonholing inexperienced pilots as the only people to get caught out, remember the two Captains at Bristol that scraped an A320 on takeoff. (too much sidestick input deploying spoilers).

I never suggested it was black or white and I'm sure it is a nice piece of kit.. I'm just a bit concerned that these days we are becoming more and more reliant on automated flight and old-fashioned piloting skills are going out the window...

Furthermore, when you put a low-houred pilot, no doubt very talented and probably knows the nuts and bolts of the kit alot better then most of us, he/she hasn't been given a chance to develop these old fashioned piloting-skills and will find it troublesome when/if the autothrust system isn't coping..

Best regards