Aeromexico B762 at Madrid on Apr 16th 2013, tail strike on takeoff
 

Heavy tail strike here by the looks of it.......

Accident: Aeromexico B762 at Madrid on Apr 16th 2013, tail strike on takeoff


An Air Europa A332 took off 7 mins later on the same runway damaging its nose wheel. . .

Incident: Air Europa A332 at Madrid on Apr 16th 2013, damaged nose gear tyres on takeoff

Main thing is everyone is ok but it could easily have been a lot worse !!!

I wonder did the Aeromexico crew report the tail strike immediately after takeoff as the Air Europa A332 was allowed takeoff on the same runway or was there a runway 'inspection' carried out ????

Some layers of cheese stacking up here .........

The AEA 332 was holding for about 2 hours at FL100 on a pattern south of Portuguese Algarve Coast, Faro East-West-East (and so on), between Faro VOR (VFA) and Sagres Cape (Sagres VOR). Its indeed strange for me about 2 itens:

1)If the crew departed on the same RWY as previous AMX seven minutes earlier, did the AMX advise ATC about it? If so, did the ATC advise AEA...its pretty strange indeed how to allow such TO without a previous RWY inspection, me thinks.

2)Why only after overflying Lisbon, about 1 hour after dep and climbing and maintaining FL310, the plane started to descent and heading towards Algarve Coast?
Could it be the fact that crew was only advised about probable issue with the gear after reaching the Atlantic? He Reached Lisbon at FL310 and then started to descent rapidly towards Sagres until stopped at FL100.
I've seen it with my own eyes low along the coast and then passing over FAO low enough as a normal FAO traffic, as lot of people saw it too. As can be seen too on FR24 "playback" mode. FL100 its not pretty common for an A332 overflight here. Besides the Fuel Dump or Burn Procedure ( i dont know wich one in this case), what really intrigues me here its the "all normal" previous pattern until reaching the ocean over LIS.

One of the spanish specialized media suggests a possibility:
That the crew wasn't initially aware of the damage because at first there wasn't such a hole and that only after climbing to higher altitude the pressure difference opened it up.

Looks like it could have been a lot worse... :uhoh:

Daermon, was the runway checked for debris before further aircraft movements were allowed? (AEA 332)

That is hard to believe if you look at the Avheralds report:
If the pilots didn't notice it themselves you would expect a call from the back.

That is more a "scratch" rather than a hole, and the latter part of the fuselage is not pressurized, so it can't "open up" because of the pressure

I once followed a Malaysian 747 onto runway 25 L @ BCN. He subsequently aborted his take off for reasons unknown. After he vacated the rwy the Tower cleared us (without hesitation) for Take off. This was politely declined :ugh:
Be careful out there ....

FACTS:
The AMX crew didn´t report the tail strike.
The AMX reported that they had a problem with the pressurized system, so they need to burn fuel and return to LEMD.
Before the AEA take off, some other planes departed without problem.
The place where the tail strike was is around 4km away from the Tower.

Let´s talk about the facts, and do not make an exercise of imagination on what was the atc doing.

What I suspect is the AMX had the tail strike and didn´t notice how severe was until they reach certain altitude, probably the bulk (pressurized) was damaged and help to do a bigger hole in the cone. Of course if the AMX crew were aware of the tail strike and reported to the atc, a runway inspection is mandatory.

Not long ago a RYR had a tyre burst in Fuerteventura and reported to the APP ATC 10 min later, meanwhile an ATR72 of Binter departed from the same runway and reported some debris in the last third of runway. So please don´t start to blame the ATC, we try to know the maximun information of our runway, but guessing is not yet available.

Damage
 

Considering the fact that the aircraft in question is a 767-200, the short fat version, they must have done something seriously wrong at rotation to drive the tail that hard into the ground.

Wrong at rotation could of course be the result of wrongdoing in the T/O performance calculation as done previously in Melbourne, to name just an example.

Still, on rotation, there is a definite pitch attitude that should not be exceeded before the aircraft actually lifts off!

Madrid ATC has radar equipment that can detect foreign objects of a certain size on the runways. I have in the past had a take off there delayed while a runway inspection was carried out due to a radar "shadow". Nothing was found, so perhaps the technology isn't reliable and gets mistrusted?

@EMIT:
Or forget to deploy the flaps whilst the warning system is disabled, which has been done before in Madrid (with an MD80).

Possibilities
 

JanetFlight
For example, a tire could have received damage such that the pressure slowly leaks out and some time after take-off the tire pressure drops below such a level that an alert is triggered.

Procede,
I am aware of that accident sequence, however, am not aware that technically the same error could happen on the 767 series (with regards to involved relays and circuit wiring).

@KTT: Can't say for sure. The article does not mention it and it would seem that the AEA was right behind the AMX. According to Dav Vader there were other planes in between.

Investigation will tell... depending in your degree of confidence towards the CIAIAC, of course :ooh:

@ Tiennetti: Sorry then for the error, I was only translating. I'm not a pilot, wouldn't know which parts are pressurized, my apologies for the male bovine deposition. :ugh:

DearmonATC
The damage is so extensive that it is not inconceivable that the rear pressure bulkhead could be damaged, leading to "opening of a crack" and catastrophic failure at high altitude after all.

It is true that the rear section, approximately the part on which the tail fin stands, is not pressurized, but be assured that this damage is more than just a scratch.

Like we say in Spain, Esto Traera Cola
 

Unbelievable incident, quasi accident. Horrible memories of Concorde, debris on runway. I ask...what about runway inspection by the Follow Me´s. I am appalled by the ongoing failure of AENA ( in this case ) to do their duties. God help us. :ugh: And to even think the flightcrew were not aware of such a devastating scrape as they obviously rotated well before VR is astounding. As Spain is raped of its sovereignity, as Iberia turns BRITISH, I can only hope at least AESA/AENA try to do their job ( unlikely.):= And lets hope the D.O. of Aeromexico smacks the captain and sacks his ass before killing passengers.

As far as I know, and untill the safety report is made, the AMX crew didn´t report the tail strike, neither in the TWR freq. nor the DEP freq. The only they reported was a pressurized problem.

After the AMX some other aircrafts departed from the same runway and also didn´t report anything, probably beacuse the AMX rolled at the end of the RWY.

Once the AEA departured from LEMD reported they had impacts on the nose gear with some debris on the runway. So then (First report of runway contamination) is when all departures were stopped and a runway inspection was made founding some metal pieces on the runway.

Far beyond this, the AMX arrived later on, after fuel burning, and during the landing they bursted some tyres (around 6) and no emergency notification even was made.

Why the AEA initially climb and headed to destination is unknown for me, but I believe they thought they were on normal operation.

I do agree ATC in Spain have to improve, in fact we are trying our best but Aena doesn´t help much, neither the AESA (Aviation safety Board) but in this case I think we cannot blame the ATC for this incident.

Let´s see what the AESA has to say, as always it will take more than a year for even a initial safety bulletin, and believe me WE all are jealous because we don´t have a NTSB, BEA, CAA...

Tanx for the explanation EMIT:ok:

Barajas - AMX tail strike
 

It has been circulating in an aviation blog in Spain that AMX pilots din't report any tail strike to tower on rotation so a runway inspection was not carried out after the incident plane departed. Again, as per this aviation blog, AMX did only report returning to Madrid due to pressurization problems; also after AMX departure, there were 7 additional departures before AEA took off without any incident; this probably due to short or medium range flights whereas AEA was a long haul flight to Caracas.

Carbon brakes, will you cut your anti Spaniard comments please??

Just a note, the AMX as far as has been commented in Spaniard forums didn't burn any extra fuel returning to Madrid, he apparently landed overweight blowing some tires. In fact the injuries to some of the crew could be due to this semi hard landing.

The AMX DIDNT report no tail strike so any criticism to ATC is UNDISERVED.

V speeds insertion...
 

IMHO, it was a V speeds-related incident, like someone was stating earlier on, tail strikes of this magnitude on rotation are most of the time related to early rotations at high TOM. I know that, back in the MD80's era in AM, dispatchers used to present the cockpit crew with the V speeds and the crew would cross-check them again with a "quick reference table" according to a specific flap setting. Is this practice a safe practice? I dunno...I guess it does cater for a "double cross-check" of the speeds provided someone does cross-check them...

My 2 cents of opinion