India First week of monsoon
 

In the first week of monsoon there have been six incidents in last 24hrs by Airlines in India. Five were on B737-800 and one was on Q400. SpiceJet had three runway excursions on B737-800 and one on Q400 while AI Express on B737-800 had one excursion and one tail strike.

No it wasn't wheels up but runway excursion and nose wheel collapse. Rains have been torrential in Mumbai. Entire June rainfall took place in 48hrs.

Does landing on a contaminated runway ring a bell with anyone?

All those fuel/oil/hydraulic fluid/rubber deposits accumulated on the runway during the dry season, washed up and mixed into a greasy mess by torrential rains. A bit like behind the line at a traffic light where cars stop in exactly the same spot and drip fluids whilst waiting for the light to change.

Greasy - easy: Use ABS max
 

I remember landing in VABB (BOM) - always used ABS MED or if runway damp, wet, VCSH or RESH, ABS MAX; and, full reverse thrust each time.

Caution with reversers
 

Reversers are OK, until your aircraft starts skidding. Then, they will not help you to restore control.

Oh, you mean skidding and diverging from center-line? I understand the use (or not) of thrust reversers in such a situation.
I was referring to braking action as a result of the runway surface at VABB

Maybe the indians should Google «grooved runway» and start doing something about their runways?

Autobrake MAX. Seriously?

Used MAX Autobrake reguarly into VABB on the 777 during Monsoon Season, why?..It looks better on the accident report (crew used all available means of retardation)..!!

Seriously MAX
 

You are quite correct - Airbus permits only auto brake MIN, MED or manual (and selection of MAX for TKOF only).
From memory, Boeing has ABS 1 thru 5; MD11 has ABS OFF, MIN, MED or MAX.
And as zlin77 stated (perhaps cynically) better to have maximum braking capability being used, than not.

Max reverse sure, but if the runway length permits landing with Autobrake med in good braking conditions, then it won't help much to select Autobrake max with poor braking action (provided braking conditions are constant over the whole runway). Autobrake will give you a certain deceleration rate, if the wheels lack the traction to support that rate, nothing but more reverse or more runway will help.

Back to the thread... And following on from ManaAdaSystem's comment...

I'm personally very surprised that the native airlines haven't all got together to go and scream at each and every Airport Director (or even the AAI) for the runways to be grooved...

https://theprint.in/india/big-questi...d53JdQAbnQNGrs

Not so much something to with Training as the selection of suitable & capable candidates in the first place.

I landed in BOM a couple of days ago and the runway seemed to be a bit grippier than I remember - has it been resurfaced? Anyway, I can confirm there was a lot of water about, three aircraft went around due w/s.

I think the proviso rarely applies, as from my experience, the worse the braking action, the more variability there is. Water/slush/snow/ice is rarely evenly distributed and you’ve likely got areas of rubber deposits around the TDZ at either end.

Autobrakes generally go for a fixed deceleration rate on anything but MAX, where they function like the ABS on a car with your foot hard on the brake: they extract the maximum stopping performance available at that instant. Consider a runway where the braking action of 50% of the surface (not necessarily in one bit) is worse than reported and 50% is better - using MAX will get more stopping in the good bits and the same in the bad bits, so a net win over an AB setting that technically should give the same result but may surprise you on the day.

Downsides of using MAX AB? Err, maybe a little bit more brake wear? Downsides of going off the end...