KE 773 landing incident at NRT
 

Incident: Korean B773 at Tokyo on Jul 13th 2009, tail strikes on landing

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | Korea plane lands on its tail

Aircraft was HL 7532.

Crikey! Is it just me or does this remind anyone else of Fedex? The video doesn't show it, but it would be interesting to see whether the nose-gear bounced after a first hit on the ground....

From what I can see of the footage on the BBC report, the nosegear doesn't get involved at all until the rollout and there doesn't seem to be any evidence of a bounce.

It does look as if the nose gear did not touch down before an unfortunate combination of wind and events lifted the nose very high. The BBC web page informs us: Unless I have misunderstood the config of a 773, I suspect that the arrival of an a/c called the '380' has got in to the BBC's auto-story generator software ...

Mhh,
the video looks more like a V-MU test than a landing to me:confused:...

CX has 380 pax on its 773 with no F/C:ok:

Did I miss something? It was simply a tailscrape, people, with no evidence of anything untoward to the nosegear! Because it was:
on landing
at Narita,
does it mean everyone should draw parallels with the Fedex? Simply a tailscrape on landing. I have seen one close up, and startling though it is to witness close by, it is essentially a non-event, and is not likely to lead to hard nosegear touchdown before, or after, the scrape. Some of the remarks seem naive and are better directed to that place where the hysterical aviation kids hang out, not a professionals forum.

Rainboe.. You must be new around here ;-) Good job this wasn't an Airbus or they'd all be screaming about how dangerous FBW is and drawing tenuous conclusions from Hamburg and Air France and....not to mention Korean pilots, CRM...and how they could all do better in MSFS

fc101 *

yes there is some deep irony in there too....

Now that you mention FBW, it is worth noting that the 777, like the A330, is FBW. I wonder if there is a link to AF447....

[/sarcasm]
Mods:
Feel free to delete this post. However, sometimes humor is needed....

Off runway?
 

The poor angle of the poor quality video looks almost as if tail contact was right of the pavement. There's quite a bit of dust being kicked up.

EDIT: the above is an observation, not speculation.

Unless you know where the camera was located and know the airport, I don't think you can make any comments about where the scrape occured. Are you seriously suggesting a crew missed the runway? Rather than a sensible discussion taking place on reasons for pitch-up after touchdown causing a scrape, we are getting daft 'shoot from the hip' speculation. If the quantity of smoke leads you to think that they 'landed in the dirt' then you should know a scrape produces prodigious smoke and sparking for a short duration.

Let's keep comment sensible! No simmer theories please! Was it an overzealous attempt to smooth touchdown leading to a strike? Pitch up due to reverse thrust? Poor handling habits? I think only a 777 pilot should speculate likely causes, but 'off the pavement'? Really!

A center hydraulic system failure would cause a pitch up with spoiler extension or lack thereof.

Was there much of a crosswind? I know the headlines mentioned 60kt winds, if there was a reasonable crosswind component in that then it could have blown the dust cloud to one side, giving the appearance of it being off the runway from the cctv camera.

I won't get into speculating about anything, except to point out that 60 km/hr is not the same as 60 kt!

If only....
 

It would be very interesting and informative if we were to find out the cause of that dramatic and sudden pitch up...but I doubt that we ever will.

@glad rag
It would be very interesting and informative if we were to find out the cause of that dramatic and sudden pitch up...but I doubt that we ever will.

Yes, my heart goes out to all those on board and their families. I doubt if they will ever find the FDR. Another non-tragic incident for which we will never really have an answer. Speculation is pointless, we must await the outcome of a full investigation.

"It would be very interesting and informative if we were to find out the cause of that dramatic and sudden pitch up"

Why?

Because, dear Farrell, some of us out there, do 12 to 15 landings a month in this type. This tail scrape, after what looks like a normal touch down ( and I emphasize "what looks like") can shorten ones career dramatically!! This is not a normal thing to happen and would think this may constitute an accident report!!

I was at Narita last week. Very gusty crosswind on landing and takeoff a couple of days later!
Anyone know if they EVER plan on making taxiway C into a runway as I believe was the origional plan? It would come in handy at various times of the year!

pilot saved the plane or the plane saved the pilot?

Do commercial aircraft really land in 60kt crosswinds - that is very close to hurricane force (average 64 kts)? I would be happy not to be SLF in such a situation.

Where does the 60KTS come from?

BBC story clearly states 60 kmph

Metars:

RJAA 130400Z 22019KT 9999 FEW030 BKN/// 32/21 Q1006 WS R16L BECMG 22020G32KT RMK 1CU030 A2971
RJAA 130330Z 22017G32KT 180V250 9999 FEW030 BKN/// 32/22 Q1006 WS R16R WS R16L NOSIG RMK 1CU030 A2973

Reverse thrust nose-up?
 

Is Rainboe sllipping?

From the Turkish 737 thread, I thought that I had learned that increasing forward thrust from low-slung engines could produce a strong nose-up couple. Surely reverse thrust should tend to pull the nose down, and so the tail up.

Then there's the off chance that was full reverse thrust without first selecting reverse thrust.

Heard this from a former colleague....line check flight of training dept honcho by a check airman who was also under audit by a foreign auditor. So checkee was pretty nervous in gusty X-winds, landed with a little skip, selected reverse and neutralise controls...aircraft did a little skip and checkee decided to go around.....attempted to rotate but could not engage TOGA as reversers unlocked; so tail strike!!! All told, bad training by Alteon gets bad results!!

From the ramp
 

Foreign Auditor probably will catch the blame for creating a bad "aura".
Pretty impressive show by a "training dept. honcho," pull reverse then go-around attempt. Any clown with a korean air farce connection can get that training department gig.
Go around attempt after pulling reverse also happened not to long ago on a KAL A300 at Gimpo Airport, with a predictable tail strike....but that one got airborne again. That particular flight was a case study in ground school. Guess someone was sleepy at his groundschool, but then again a trainer probably should've known that call, a long time ago.......When will these guys ever learn ???

Interestingly, neither this one nor the Airbus tailstrike have made it into ASN database. Got a link on the Airbus?

UK Units of speed
 

Seems to me that journalists producing material for UK audiences now seem to use kilometers an hour in many cases. I presume the idea is to confuse people into thinking that the event was more dramatic than it in fact was.

Some success in this case anyway. Got the 15% nautical bonus too.

What does the panel think is the next "more dramatic unit of speed" that our friends will come up with?

furlongs per fortnight?

Got comfirmation that it was a botched attempt at aborting the landing; apparently the 2 jump seat occupants who were checking the PF screammed to him to " abort " the abort landing attempt as the thrust reversers were already deployed......unfortunately, he had already started the pitch up maneuver, leading to tailstrike. A bad day.......

so assuming the TOGA story hits:

- They were on approach in gusty crosswinds
- landed accordingly (plane needs wheels firmly on ground to deploy thurst reversers) within the touchdown zone (?)
- thrust reversers out
- folks screaming "go around" after (what I presume is) a "smooth" landing
- PF hits TOGA (for whatever reason apart from jumpseat screaming ?)
- Tailstrike occurred ?

Re-read the occurrences mentioned by the two previous posters and now I can follow :-)

11 knots crosswind is what created this drama. Choose your carrier carefully.

Yep, they could have converted it into m/sec too, but despite rumours to the contrary, there are still a vast proportion of the population who understand imperial measurements, and prefer their use when appropriate....as in aviation or shipping!

LOL....you might think so, however on some types , selecting agressive reverse definitely does result in a nose-up moment....easily corrected by straightarming the column.

KE B773 NRT incident and flawed Alteon training
 

According to a friend who had been in KAL, Alteon instructors had been training KAL B773 pilots with flawed cross wind landing techniques! They only emphasised the decrabbing method at flare or about 100' AGL...this is not an exact science especially in strong gusty and variable crosswinds. The decrabbing causes significant high descent rate coupled with automatic retardation of the thrust levers by the autothrottle invariably results in heavy landing strut compression which can be misinterpreted as a bounce, hence the botched attempt to reject the landing. Most of the older Alteon instrucors/checkers have never physically flown a B777 and think that the simulator ( which has plenty of nonsensical bugs anyway ) has the perfect fidelity to behave exactly as the real aircraft.

Totempole - are you saying that the Alteon instructors should have been teaching that awful crosswind method known as wing down?? Been on the 767 for 10 years, the 777 for nigh on 8 and have only ever used the decrab method, and have never had what you described. This method is FAR better than the wing down crosscontrolled method.

Yeah, I have never heard of using a cross controlled X-wind technique in a large transport catagory jet. You will certainly come close to scraping a wingtip or an engine pod on a 4 engine jet. I had a F/O pull one on me a while ago and it was not only uncomfortable , he still landed with the nose canted off the centerline before he derotated the nose. His abrupt rudder movement to straighten the nose just added to the lack of control he showed.
Use rudder to decrab and lower the upwind wing a little to touchdown on the upwind main, then fly the other side and then the nose down. It does not have to be dramatic.

well, then again, qouted in MPS, Kts, KPH, FPM, or the beaufort scale, wind is wind, and its effect is only truly understood when you look at the runway out the window, whichever window you need to look out to see it, (LH side, fronts, RH side)
Before that, you saw what correction you needed to hold the loc, but thats heading.
Visual is when you know the wind, by effect, and what you previously heard it in is now insignificant,

adjust accordingly.
Thats why they give us a really big rudder or two, and ailerons.

I am constantly amused when I go to certain UK airports, and on a gusty day the controller insists on giving us a running commentary of spot winds, what do they think we do with this updating info?
(no offense to controllers, I know you are only trying to help)

Crosswind Landing Technique
 

Agree...
Here's an example:
http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/55/555...8pRfSmQ_th.jpg
http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/74/174...8crWTQs_th.jpg
http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/74/174...8MPOihf_th.jpg
http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/96/96/...8ALvuCl_th.jpg
http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/55/555...8FxPCEf_th.jpg
http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/96/96/...8IyTqZs_th.jpg
http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/74/174...8RVWxFX_th.jpg
http://thumb18.webshots.net/t/75/175...8VvsZwZ_th.jpg
Photos by J. Sequeira (Azores)