777-300 Landing Tailstrike 11 Dec 2018 in Hong Kong
 

I just learned of this event today. A quick look through PPRUNE rumors and news did not reveal any previous thread about this one.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...strike-454428/

From what I saw it seems the tail damage was fairly extensive. I'm interested in both the status of this bird and any details anyone may have about that landing.

Pictures on Twitter here:

Some discussion of it in this thread.

What an unfortunate registration C-FITW - In the North Sea offshore helicopter industry in means controlled flight into terrain (water).

Ironic that i only watched a documentary on YouTube yesterday about rampant fatigue at 'Air Canada', i wonder if it had anything to do with this? They did mention that Canada were in the process of reducing the hours form 1200 (iirc) to bring them in line with the FAA as they had the third highest flight hours . Id be interested to hear other peoples thoughts on it.

Interesting. The 777-300 has software tailstrike protection which reduces elevator deflection but it still has a tail skid, strike detector and a checklist, so obviously not thought to be infallible...

Full Wings. Depends on model. Earlier ones had tail skid and no protection and later ones have no skid and a computer to protect. However one thing is for sure.. nothing is infallible.

I believe all -300ERs have some degree of tailstrike protection embedded in the flight control software. Later production aircraft have enhanced protection, which enabled them to be built without the tailskid, resulting in significant weight savings when all the extra structure needed for it was eliminated.

Earlier aircraft can have the software upgrade and the tailskid removed, though the weight savings are obviously less. I think a similar SB is also available for non-ER -300s.

Interesting to have another 'protection' system, a la MCAS, that obviously limits the pilot's inputs. Boeing, unlike Airbus, used to have a philosophy that the pilot should be able to bend the airplane. Clearly that is no longer the case.

Hope that you are right, that I was maligning Boeing unfairly in this instance. Can anyone give a definitive answer?

When they can be overridden they get overridden even when not required.

HK Air Accident Investigation Authority released its Preliminary Report. I don't have enough posts to include the link here.

Interesting read. I was on that AC 15 on Dec 11 2018. It's one of my regular routes.

Thank you for posting the link.

My recorded notes on Dec 11 upon arrival had some of the same details noted in the prelim report. Plus flying as pax, we had different views rolling to the right while seated just in front of the wing on the starboard side. Knew there would be damage with the first hit. We also felt more than one bounce. She was already at the Haeco facility prior to my departure on connecting flight. She is still there.

Report is issued by the accident investigation unit of the state of occurrence unless delegated to the state of registration

Considering that the PF was getting the feel of the aircraft first time and below 200ft. aircraft was laterally disturbed requiring correction which wasn't adequately coming from the PF and CM1 had to intervene he might as well have postponed the first landing of the FO to another day and completed the landing himself. Two people trying to maintain the center line nobody seems to have flared. 777 is a big aircraft to successfully do all that at such a low altitude. What happened to stabilized approach concept?

Interesting that, judging by the photos in post #2, the damage was sustained roughly in line with the bulk cargo door - several frames forward of the tailskid.

Interesting and unusual. I am aware of a tail scrape on a B777 landing due to the Vref speed manually inputted incorrectly. (Why do some people insist on manually knocking off a bit of weight for the descent and approach and typing in a revised landing weight instead of selecting the present weight figure which at worst will give you a 2 knot greater speed?)

My experiences of someone's first landing on type after a long flight is a tendency to under flare and a firm arrival. I wonder if the trainee on this flight flared late and continued to raise the nose as the wheels touched, possibly aided by a Captain rapidly increasing back pressure. I'd be interested in what the nose pitch was when the tail scraped. For a normal landing the nose is raised to no higher than 5 degrees and the tail would not scrape until at least 8 degrees pitch or so. An extended flare can lead to a tail strike but that would not give a firm landing.

I guess it's just my natural curiosity.

YMMV :O

Just saw her the other day at HKIA, still outside Haeco, but after 60 days there, she just landed at YYZ as AC 2328

What does a carrier like AC do with a pilot that caused that kind of of damage (or was at least in part responsible)?

Dave, is seems quite typical of landing and bounce scrapes. The tailskid is mounted to protect the impact point against takeoff tailstrikes. With MLG oleos extended, the geometry is different.

Surely that cannot be an actual SOP? That sounds exceptionally prescriptive and in today's more enlightened environment of encouraging hand-flying/reduced levels of automation/raw data etc when appropriate for the prevailing conditions, it sounds almost draconian for a western airline and totally out of line with best practise.

You're correct. Our FOM encourages hand flying i am not on the 777, but what the boys and girls do after being in the air for 16 hours I am not sure I am on the 320. Some pilots disengage pretty late. Others will turn everything off above 10,000 when appropriate. I subscribe to the later personally, I like flying the bus raw data, AP and A/THR off I feel more in the loop of current performance. Some others will take over at minimums and leave A/THR engaged.

Regarding what happens to said pilot, my understanding is the skipper was close to retirement so unfortunately this was his last landing. The PF will probably get further coaching and released back to line indoc (if not already having done so).

See how many times you do that after doing a ULR flight. I'm tipping not even one. :ok:

Because our system of box ticking compliance driven standards results in some parts of the program having a vice like grip on the trivial, without recognition of the attendant elevation of risks. Concentrating on one minor part of the system results in opportunity to miss the big picture items, woods v trees

I think that ground contact at the angle of any of those lines would be an abnormal landing?

Just asking... You "must" use the A/P for a CAT II approach at Air Canada? Is this type dependant?

In my major european airline, we have to fly CAT II with the AP in also. I assume it was a fairly common rule now? A few years ago it said we SHOULD fly CAT II with an AP and it should never be planned to be manually flown, now we don't practice it in the sim so the rules have changed meaning that anything tighter than CAT I (eg LTS/OTS etc) must be flown with the automatics.

Most 773 touchdown attitudes are between 3.5 and 5.0 degrees. higher than that is the result are worthy of analysis. To get a tail strike needs an extended float bleeding speed excessively, (each 5kts is another degree of attitude more or less) or an abrupt late flare at a low speed. A bounce and attempted flare to cushion the landing will result in reduced tail clearances. A very low touchdown sink rate can result in a pitch up on WOW logic triggering spoiler rise. The B777 is better than previous Boeings in that regard, but there is a pitch up moment at that time unless the gear has completed the ground stroke.

Crosswinds positively correlate to reduced tail clearances, although my data on that is at least 5 years out of date.

The lowest clearances that occur in normal operations is on takeoff, where a Vr error, or loss of airspeed following commencement of rotate can be nasty, but historically most strikes occur on landings where there is more clearance on a normally executed landing, but there is more variability in technique and dynamics resulting in speed variation in the flare, and variation in the pitch rate and attained pitch.

FWIW, adding a HUD makes it much easier to ensure that flares are appropriate, FPV remaining on the touchdown zone etc...