IIRC the Stansted 748 pilot was offered the opportunity to go from an intersection. He declined and took the whole runway.

The aircraft was carrying the Leeds United team home from a fixture in London Very nearly a second Munich in footballing terms.

I am surprised that everybody is so quick to praise this crew.

Had they continued the flight would they have not been able to fly a safe circuit back to land?

How did they know for certain that they had enough room to come to a stop? They were in a grey area and were lucky this time. Next time they might not be.

The failure that they had was not catastrophic so the potential downside didn't not warrant such a major deviation from SOP and risk.

Such a massive deviation from SOP and foray into such an unknown area should only be done if the alternative is certain crash, in this instance I do not believe that was the case.

Agree with fmgc,

What all you "good show" types don't know is if this was the result of a well thought out action or the result of total over reaction plus panic plus lots of luck.

Who knew at the time?

Who knew at the time? (but you'd have some idea)

Who knew at the time?

Strict adherance to SOP/"Good airmanship" has removed a number of good
individuals from our community.

Personally, I'm not one to judge (even after final report), preferring to learn
along the way in the hope the old grey matter will act as required when needed.

For goodness sake - LOOK AT THE FACTS.
They had plenty of space and then plenty more to spare.

At the end of the day... it was a crap shoot that paid off:ok::D. Sometimes actions taken in the heat of the battle pay off and well. sometimes they don’t:{:=.

There were only two people in the cockpit at the time the event took place. The two present in the cockpit were the only ones aware of their current situation along with their abilities. The rest of us on this thread are just speculators and second guessers... those who agree and those who disagree.

Let’s suppose their decision were to continue with the takeoff with a disastrous outcome. Then upon the review of the DFDR, which is eventually shared with the public, was determined that the failure occurred at the exact point. Then what would the comments be from the arm chair quarterbacks:hmm:?

Agree captsjns... Also, many RTO briefs states that after V1 you only abort for eng fires/failures or A/C is unable/unsafe to fly. Well, If I got a stick shaker at rotation with plenty of rwy ahead of me I would personally have done the same. A stall warning is probably as unsafe as it gets....

11,000 ft is plenty of runway probably even for a CRJ to do the same thing (Speculation alert!). I really don't blame the pilots for breaking SOP. Especially in a Dash with the gigantic airbrakes haniging from the wings, if everything is controlable on the ground but as soon as we leave the ground things go bonkers, I'm going back to the ground.

Standard Operating Procedures are exactly what they say, standard procedures to follow when something standard happens.
Dealing with non-standard emergencies is called airmanship and is the way that a captain earns his keep. If the captain make the right decisions he gets to live and fly again another day.
In this case there was plenty of runway to land straight ahead and then plenty more left over for a good safety margin so the decision was easy.

In other circumstances it might have been a choice between the cabbage patch at the end of the runway and a hillside several miles away. Guess which one the crash tenders would have got to first.

fmcg
 

Are you refering to the Dash 8 or the HS 748 incident?

Exactly - and it even says that in the front of the QRH and the manuals for most aircraft.

Unfortunately in these days of blind adherance to SOP's to suit the lowest common denominator such 'airmanship' is frowned upon my many.

Sorry old chap - After V1 you would never brief to abort for an engine fire failure - V1 is calculated based on having sufficient performance to continue in the event of a failure.
However I agree with the unsafe to fly bit! But you are off the charts then so you gotta think on your feet, use a bit of experience (i.e "that looks like plenty of runway to stop on"), and hope for a bit of luck.


Agree 100%

If I remember the HS748 incident correctly; as a result of the catastrophic engine failure, the cowlings peeled back to make a very effective airbrake. It was determined afterwards that the aircraft probably would not have been able to climb away.

However, sticking to the SOP is usually the best solution whatever the problem. You might be lucky trying to second-guess the system, but making an ad hoc decision while still in ":mad:mewhatjusthappenedthen" mode is probably not the best way to come to the right decision.

Fangio, I refer to the Dash 8 incident.

Those of you who think that ignoring SOPs for anything other than MAJOR unforseable events are an accident waiting to happen.

In this incident, where does plenty of runway ahead turn into just about enough runway ahead and then turn into not enough runway ahead? It is a grey area well worth avoiding.

How did the crew know for sure that there was enough runway ahead? They were in the realms of guesswork and personal judgement.

This comment sums up my point with the pertinent term being PROBABLY!

It is very rare for an accident/incident to occur when SOPs had been adhered to, but quite common when SOPs had not been followed.

fmgc:

Are you really stupid or just trolling ?
There is NO STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE for what happened in this case. Faced with an unpredictable and clearly unsafe condition the captain used his common sense and his Mk1 eyeball to deduce the safest solution to a potentally fatal situation.

He did the right thing in the circumstances which faced him and landed safely with no damage and no injuries to his passengers.
I just hope that you are not so bull-headed when something similar happens to you.

Did he? Or was he just lucky that there actually was enough runway ahead.

Tell me Ancient Geek, what were his probabilities of crashing had he continued the flight?

If they were high then he did the right thing.
If low then he should have continued the take off.
If we don't know then you can't argue that he did the right thing as much as I can't argue that he didn't.

The lack of SOP for this particular failure doesn't justify a breach of other SOPs.

There are many situations that we deal with that are not covered directly by SOP but abandoning a take off after V1 let alone Vr is a major deviation.

If you read my posts I don't discount deviation from SOPs if the circumstances warrant it BUT and it's a big but they really do have to warrant it.

It seems to me that too many Captains use the standard disclaimer in the manuals about his right to deviate from SOP and the Rules of the Air too lightly because they arrogantly think that they know better, when in most circumstances, they don't.

Just because this incident thankfully ended safely does not mean that the Captain can be vindicated for what is a very risky course of action.

Let's assume the flight crew was professional and behaved professional... That would mean that they would not have started the take-off run without performance numbers (minimum runway required).
So they would have known that V1==VR and how many spare feet of runway they had. With that knowledge it is easy to come to the conclusion that landing straight ahead will be safe. :8

But V1 & Vr are speeds that on a given day will equate to a position on the runway.

You do not know the actual distance of runway left. (Unless you have some sophisticated performance system).

In any case once you have reached 50' you don't know how much runway you are going to use to put the aircraft back down and come to a safe stop, so know how much runway you have left after Vr is irrelevant.

Have you ever flown a DHC8-100 ?
Do you understand what STOL means ?
Which part of "There is no SOP for this failure" do you not understand.

Clue :- Takeoff run at MGW = 2625 feet
Runway lenth = 12000 feet
Therefore they were less than 1/4 of the way down the runway when they aborted.
Landing straight ahead was a no-brainer, they had room to do this and still have half of the runway to spare.

A decision to reject a takeoff immediately after V1 must not be taken lightly. My worry is that in the inquiry afterwards, some smart investigator is going to cross examine you as to the meaning of V1.

Smart-S: You made the decision to continue the takeoff at V1, didn't you ?
Pilot: Yes.
Smart-S: And then you did something totally contrary to your decision, didn't you ?
Pilot: I had enough runway and no one got hurt.
Smart-S: Answer the question. You ignored your own decision, didn't you ?
Pilot: ... :sad: