Air France rejected T/O in Lagos
 

Does anyone have more details about this reject T/O in Lagos on Jan 13?
Must be a high speed reject to blow some tires.

http://ndn.nigeriadailynews.com/templates/?z=8&a=22348

Air France re-route passengers stranded in Lagos
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - Wole Shadare


ONE of Europe's mega carriers, Air France had its passengers stranded at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, following technical problems which damaged the tyres of its aircraft. The pilot was said to have consequently aborted take-off.

Following the problem, the airline accommodated all the passengers in Eko Hotels, including 48 passengers from Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.

One of Air France's officials, Mr. Toyin Alaran, in a statement made available to journalists yesterday said, "There was a "Technical no go" on the Lagos Murtarla Muhammed Airport runway when Air France flight AF855 was taking off on January 11.

"No risk taken, pilots decided to interrupt the taking off. With such a strong breaking, few tyres were damaged and need now to be replaced by new ones about to arrive from Paris this afternoon with some technicians. All passengers were accommodated in Eko Hotel, including 48 passengers from Port Harcourt."

Alaran disclosed that all the passengers had been re-routed on Air France and KLM flights tonight (yesterday) and on some other airlines flights from Port Harcourt and Lagos.

The carrier had recently re-organised its operations to Nigeria with flights streamlined as Paris-Lagos-Port-Harcourt, using Boeing 777-300 aircraft.

In its maidem operations on the new route, the airline said it would now combine the Paris-Lagos flight, with the direct Paris-Port Harcourt flight previously operated with an Airbus 319 aircraft.

According to the airline, the new wide-body aircraft is configured with eight First Class seats; 67 Business Class seats; and 250 Economy Class seats.

This, it said, would help the airline to meet additional capacity, particularly in cargo demand.

"The flights will operate via Lagos, while departures from Paris de Gaulle will be at Terminal 2E.

"The wide-body Boeing 777-300 on the Port Harcourt route offers improved services such as a tri-class cabin with First, Business and Economy classes, improved baggage allowance (two pieces of luggage weighing less than 23kgs each in Economy class, instead of previous 20 kgs allowance), personal in-flight entertainment in all cabins and all products and services of Air France's international long haul standards," the statement read in part

Monkey on the runway?

There is a huuuuuge topic on french forum radiocockpit (RadioCoco • Page d?index)

Lagos was a short stop to board some pax. The crew failed to arm AT before departure.
On takeoff, pushing TOGA didn't engage AT (for cause, it wasn't armed).
Instead of applying procedure (manually set thrust and think about it later), the captain tried to arm AT. But instead, engaged Auto Pilot.
On VR, captain felt the controls were heavy, thought on a stabilizer jam, and decided to reject.

According to Boeing Statement, there is 7 another cases of AP unattentioned engagement during takeoff roll.
It seems a soft update is in development to prevent engaging AP on ground.

Thanks Jeff
Much appreciated

Holy Crap.

If that's true Air France have totally failed in improving the safety ethos of their pilots post the Delta audit.

Was it a coincident V1 / VR? If it wasn't it's a bloomin' miracle they didn't write off another a/c and hurt more people.

LD

Like someone said on rcoco, hopefully, it was not raining...

This is an air france bulleting destinated to the air france 777 crew, posted on Rcoco forum.

this is my traduction, so sorry for the mistakes.

On takeoff from lagos, during the night between 11th and 12th of january, the F-QSQI [ndlr : it must be the F-GSQI] crew initiated a high speed RTO, and the airplane came 900m from the runway 36L threshold.
On VR, the captain who was Pilot Flying felt a heavy strength on the controls, and thought about the stabilizer jam. He estimated the aircraft was unsafe to fly.
He aborted the takeoff, maximum speed reached was 161 kt, and deceleration was -0,48g.
After self taxiing back to the stand escorted by security, 6 tires deflated, brakes were cooled down by firefighters. An information communicated to crew and passengers enabled a disembarkation by door 1R.
The crew, once at base, was welcomed by the division.
All the brakes and tires have been changed, a fuse and boogies inspection is in progress.
The ASR reveal the following facts :
After pushing the TOGA buttons, the engine EPR didn’t increase.
The captain manually set the takeoff power and observe the A/T is not engaged. Deciding to arm it, he engages too by inadvertance the autopilot. None of the both pilots notice it during the takeoff roll.
Boeing recorded 7 AP ground engagement cases on B777 on similar conditions.
What are our protections ?
If the setting thrust sequence is not conform ather the N1 stabilisation at 55 % and the TOGA push, we have two options :
- rejecting takeoff
- continuing takeoff with AT unavailable, the thrust needing to be set manually by slowly pushing the throttles to takeoff thrust. Thrust adjustments by N1 indications must be done before 100 kts. In this case, THR REF does not appears on FMA.
Also, a slight forward pressure on the yoke increase the nosewheel efficiency for lateral control until 80 kts.
During crosswind, wings must be maintained horizontal by using the ailerons control (yoke in the wind) as necessarly.
Those two actions on yoke allow to identify a possibly control jam during takeoff roll.
Bla bla bla bla

I thought V1 at Lagos was at -2kts, ie. on Push-back.

PM

High energy RTO with 161kts followed by taxiing back.....:=

Typical, for a two man (person) crew.
Ahhh, it is nice to have that one fellow that can set the thrust for you, and provide that third set of eyes to catch possible mistakes...the Professional Flight Engineer.
Lucky us...we have one:ok:

Used to have T shirt en-scribed "Happiness is V1 at Lagos"

With the greatest of respect I don't think moving it to a "spotty spotters" (well not quite, but slightly in that direction) forum is taking it seriously.

The serious issue here, is that Air Chance, on a different Runway/Day, would have had another hull loss here, caused primarily by poor MCC. Maybe "just" an RTO, but @161kts, many places where this could have ended VERY badly.

For this reason I am slightly mystified why this thread wasn't left where it would be seen my the maximum number of pilots, just in case Boeing hasn't been too keen to publicise this fairly common (well 7 times is 7 too many ) occurence.
From a purely air safety point of view I rest my case, & well, a bit of Frog bashing never goes amiss ;) Hell, they are even bashing themselves now. :oh:

Regards

Close the loop. If you don't, one day, something will bite you.

Thanks for bringing back the thread !
Interesting comment.
Curiously, the FCTM does not say much on what to do or not to do following RTO.
Would you comment further ?

I guess he was thinking (correctly as it seems to have transpired ? ) of fusible plugs.

V1 VR V1 (again) doesn't usually end this well.

Give thanks to long Nigerian runways & Boeing 777 brakes :D

RTO in the high energy region (> 100kt) may seriously affect brakes, tyres (as it did in this incident), hydraulic lines and wires. Chances of a wheel fire are very high.

Remaining on the runway and asking for firebrigade and tech support gives you

- more space for the firebrigade than on a taxiway
- info about the tech status of the aircraft
- enough room for the slides if you need to evacuate

High energy RTOs are serious incidents and there is absolutely no reason to continue normal ops.

Cheers

hetfield....

Yes, I would. Referring to a little 'event' that I've heard occurred in Dhaka Bangladesh in the late 90's.

Yep...........agree. The Dhaka RTO was reported to have been initiated >VR. :eek:

Indeed they are, and I'm told that 7 of the 8 MLG tyres AND wheel rims were destroyed by the subsequent fire at Dhaka.

Aircraft at Dhaka apparently remained on the runway because of all the damage to the MLG, so it couldn't taxi any further! :rolleyes:

There was reportedly no request from the crew for the aerodrome RFFS to attend. :ugh: Fortunately for everyone on board the A300 at Dhaka, the RFFS apparently DID attend, and very promptly.

By the way, it's an ACCIDENT when the damage is not limited to the engine or its cowlings or accessories, propellers, wing tips, antennas, tires, brakes, fairings, small dents or puncture holes in the aircraft skin. (Reference: ICAO Annex 13).

411A, I wanna fly with you guys, I love those buddies behind us

In my company we have quite comprehensive guidance. After stopping and carrying out the immediate actions, if an evacuation is not required then the next step is calculate the brake energy figures from the QRH to establish how safe it is to move or not as the case may be. The B777 is pretty amazing in this regard.

Some years ago I had an RTO at around 160kts at close to max TOW. We were able to safely taxy off the runway and back to the apron with brakes that did not reach the range where fuse plugs were in danger of melting, albeit they were hot!

Boeing 777 RTO at MAUW during certification