Jetliner Slams Tail Into Runway

Fox ^ | Saturday, March 21, 2009 | staff

[gandalftb]

MELBOURNE, Australia — An Emirates jetliner carrying more than 225 people slammed its tail into the runway as it took off from Australia, sending smoke into the cabin and forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing, officials said Saturday.

No one was hurt, but passengers described being terrified after learning something was wrong soon after the Airbus A340 took off from the southern city of Melbourne about 10:30 p.m. Friday, bound for Dubai.

After the strike, which reportedly left debris strewn on the runway and knocked out some runway lights, the pilot flew over the sea, dumping fuel, before returning to the airport and landing without incident.

"We did land successfully, thankfully, and the plane was surrounded by paramedics and fire engines," passenger Catherine Edmunds told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "It was terrifying. I'd hate to go through it again."

The ABC said crew noticed smoke in the cabin during the roughly 45 minutes the plane was in the air.

He said such incidents where known in the industry as "tail hits" and were caused by a number of factors such as the angle of takeoff, weather conditions and loading issues.

[gandalftb]

Background on this post:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2337671/posts

BTW, they are known in the industry as tail strikes, not "tail hits".

Here are pics of the strike:

[Babu]

PETA will no doubt have a fit about the fishies having to drink the fricking jet fuel dumped by the nasty human beans ...

[gandalftb]

Try those pics again:

[_Jim]

Story (as told/discussed by pilots) and w/pics at:

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/366754-ek407-tailstrike-ml.html

[SkyDancer]

There’s a hydraulic panel that comes out of the tail section that protects the tail during a tail strike. It’s always out when the gear is down and comes up when the gear is retracted. Doesn’t happen often but it does happen - that’s what that panel is for. In reality you don’t want it to happen - have to buy beer for the crew if you do LOL

[_Jim]

pix not coming thru

[_Jim]

There’s a hydraulic panel that comes out of the tail section that protects the tail during a tail strike.

Can you point out where that is on one of the photos at the pprune.org website?

[driftdiver]

Didn’t this airline have another one of these recently?

[gandalftb]

Not sure why they don't load. Here is the direct link:

http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww238/gandalftb/th_ML2.jpg

http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww238/gandalftb/th_ML1.jpg

[BP2]

OUCH!

There's flare - and then there's FLARE!

[_Jim]

Here's your issue with your pix:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2337767/[http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww238/gandalftb/th_ML1.jpg]

URL is probably:

http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww238/gandalftb/th_ML1.jpg

and the HTML like this:

<img src="http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww238/gandalftb/th_ML1.jpg">

Which gives this:

[WVKayaker]

Sorta reminds me of my first PSA 727 out of SFO in 1968. I could have sworn the jockey bumped the tail when he rotated...

This flight ended a little worse.

At just after 9 a.m. on September 25, 1978, a Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) 727 with 127 passengers and seven crew hit a Cessna 172 on approach to Lindbergh Airport in San Diego. Both aircraft fell into the North Park area of the city. All 135 on the PSA plane and both on board the Cessna were killed on impact as were seven on the ground."

[omega4179]

yep theres a clear video of that being tested on youtube. search for tail strike airbus

[SkyDancer]

It doesn’t show the tail end of the AC ... from the looks of the scar it appears the gear was already coming up so that panel was coming up as well ... if you watch AC taking off you’ll notice that the tail section is almost parallel to the runway - from that scar it looks like the plane sank ...

[SunkenCiv]

An Emirates jetliner... the Airbus A340

[SkyDancer]

Thanks! Seen lots of vid’s on that .....

[gandalftb]

Yup, check this out:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/ek407s-scrape-with-death/story-e6frf7kx-1225697168805

[True Grit]

An Emirates jetliner carrying more than 225

Sounds like an Arab sheik was trying to take off with too much gold and too many women.

[gandalftb]

Thanks! HTMLing too fast.

[_Jim]

There’s a hydraulic panel that ...

How come the professional pilots et al at pprune.org never mentioned this 'panel'? Wouldn't the "pitch limiter" indicator on the PFD be enough to keep the pilots informed of their aircraft attitude?