EK A340 MEL tail-strike pilot tells his story

[Denny Yen 0]

Ellen Whinnett

July 12, 2009 12:00am

THE pilot at the controls of an Emirates jet that almost crashed at Melbourne Airport has revealed how he saved 275 lives.

 

Breaking a four-month silence, the pilot told how he managed to wrench the fully-loaded plane into the air just seconds before it almost crashed.

 

"I still don't know how we got it off the ground," the pilot said.

 

"I thought we were going to die, it was that close.

 

"It was the worst thing in 20 years (of flying). It was the worst thing I've felt, but thank God we got it safely around."

 

The pilot, a 42-year-old European man, spoke to the Sunday Herald Sun on the condition his identity not be revealed.

 

Realising the plane had not reached a high enough speed to get airborne, and with the end of the runway rapidly approaching, the pilot and co-pilot were desperately checking controls in the cockpit, trying to find out what had gone wrong.

 

At the last second, the pilot engaged a rapid acceleration known as TOGA (take-off go-around) and lifted the plane off the ground.

 

With 257 passengers and 18 crew aboard, the Airbus A340-500 struck its tail three times, wiped out lights and a navigation antennae at the end of the runway - some of the equipment struck was just 70cm high - and sustained $100 million damage as it barely cleared the airport boundary fence.

 

After limping into the air, the pilot took the jet out over Port Phillip Bay to dump its load of highly flammable aviation fuel, then returned to Melbourne Airport 30 minutes later.

 

Passengers had seen smoke and dust swirl into the cabin and felt the impact as the tail struck the ground, but the pilot did not tell them how bad the situation was, fearing it would cause them to panic.

 

The pilot said that when he left the plane after safely returning to Melbourne Airport he saw a number of the passengers disembarking, unaware of how close to death they had come.

 

"There were a lot of passengers left the airplane smiling," he said.

 

He said the landing afterwards was a "textbook landing".

 

"From take-off until we landed I am extremely proud of what we did from push-off to landing.

 

"The cabin crew were outstanding. We did extremely well under the circumstances. We kept it very, very simple."

 

He said he did not know to this day exactly how he manoeuvred the Airbus into the air.

 

"I . . . sort of reacted on instinct," he said.

 

"I had a feeling that (something) wasn't working, but I couldn't find out what was wrong.

 

"I knew I couldn't stop.

 

"At that point I knew we just had to go.

 

"And we got it off the ground, miraculously."

 

The accident was later described as the closest Australia had come to a major aviation catastrophe.

 

Tail strikes are extremely dangerous and can result in a plane breaking in two.

 

A report by air safety investigators found the co-pilot was at the controls when the pilot, a captain, called on him to "rotate", or lift the plane's nose.

 

When the plane failed to lift, the pilot again called for him to rotate the plane, which saw the plane's nose lift and its tail strike the ground.

 

The pilot then took over, commanding and selecting TOGA, which provides the maximum thrust the plane's engines will deliver.

 

Once the plane was in the air, the crew realised the take-off weight programmed into the plane's computer was 100 tonnes lighter than the actual weight of the plane.

 

The typing error meant the wrong take-off speed and thrust settings had been calculated.

 

Emirates has said there were four layers of checks that should have picked up the error, and the failure to do so was "perplexing".

 

The pilot did not type in the numbers, but was responsible for checking them.

 

The pilot said he almost collapsed after bringing the plane safely back to land.

 

"One of my friends almost admitted me to hospital I was so stressed," he said.

 

"If you have a near-death experience your body reacts in a particular way."

 

In multiple interviews conducted with the Sunday Herald Sun over a period of weeks, the pilot who has left Dubai with his family and returned to his home country in Europe also revealed:

 

HE had slept for only 3 1/2 hours in the 24 hours before the flight taking off on March 20.

 

THE brush with death upset him so badly he had not slept for four days after the accident.

 

HE and his co-pilot were ordered to resign. They were handed pre-prepared letters of resignation when they returned to Emirates headquarters.

 

HE was still so horrified by the accident that he could not bear to think about it.

 

HE needed to find a job, but did not know if he would fly again.

 

HE was reluctant to reveal exactly what happened in the cockpit in case his recollection was different from what Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigators would find.

 

The veteran pilot, who has 22 years' experience with the military and commercial airlines, said he knew Melbourne Airport quite well.

 

In his 4 1/2 years of flying for Emirates he had flown in and out of Melbourne many times.

 

"Maybe four, five times in the past six months," he said.

 

"Melbourne was one of the places I knew well.

 

"Maybe (I flew there) once every other month.

 

"It was quite emotional to have to say goodbye."

 

Since the accident, several Emirates pilots have spoken to the Sunday Herald Sun, saying fatigue was a major problem with the airline, which is one of the world's largest long-haul carriers.

 

The ATSB has also been told of fatigue problems, though its preliminary report into the tail strike revealed fatigue was probably not a factor.

 

The pilot said it was hard for him to know if he was fatigued or not, but that he had very little sleep when the near-fatal error was made.

 

"I had the flown the maximum in the last 30 days. One hundred hours in 28 days, it's an Emirates rule," he said.

 

"I'd flown 99 hours. You can fly 100 hours in a month. There a big difference in long-haul, nights, it's a mix of everything."

 

He said he had told ATSB investigators he had little sleep in the day before to the 10.30pm flight on Friday, March 20.

 

"This long-haul flying is really, really fatiguing. Really demanding on your body," he said.

 

"When I did that take-off in Melbourne I had slept 3 1/2 hours in 24 hours.

 

"You feel sort of normal, abnormal."

 

He said he had been in Melbourne for 24 hours before his flight.

 

"That (the Melbourne-Dubai flight) is the most tiring trip I have done in my career.

 

"You're always out of whack."

 

The pilot said he and other pilots tried hard not to make any mistakes, but occasionally errors happened.

 

"It's never on purpose," he said.

 

"No fingers point in our direction. It happens because of a range of things coming together at the time.

 

"Until now, I had a perfect record.

 

"I was just a pilot."

 

He said he had told the ATSB everything about the period leading up to the accident, and he praised the Australian investigators for their thoroughness and sensitivity.

 

"I told them everything about what happens. Eating, exercise, I was dead honest. It's always like that when you fly," he said.

 

"I was really scared of going to jail when I got back to Dubai."

 

He said there had been four pilots in the cockpit - he and the co-pilot, who had been at the controls as the plane taxied along the runway, and two augmenting pilots who were on board because of the length of the 14 1/2 hour flight to Dubai.

[Cornelis Boersma 0]

Wow! Interesting interview!! They had to resign.. unbelievable!

[KK Lee 5]

‘sustained $100 million damage as it barely cleared the airport boundary fence.’

 

‘Once the plane was in the air, the crew realised the take-off weight programmed into the plane's computer was 100 tonnes lighter than the actual weight of the plane.

 

The typing error meant the wrong take-off speed and thrust settings had been calculated.

 

Emirates has said there were four layers of checks that should have picked up the error, and the failure to do so was "perplexing".

 

The pilot did not type in the numbers, but was responsible for checking them.’

 

‘HE had slept for only 3 1/2 hours in the 24 hours before the flight taking off on March 20.’

 

Whether is negligence or fatigue, tech crews are responsible. It could be worst, they could leave them rot in jail in DXB.

 

 

 

Edited July 13, 2009 by KK Lee

[Izhar Z 1]

From what I read, fatigue problems for EK staffs - pilots of cabin crew - is kind of common. Maybe the airline should be questioned as well.

Pre-prepared resign letter. That's something I don't want to see....

[C.Foo 3]

Forced to resign how did that happen. If in Peru he would of got jail big time

 

I hope can find another job as a pilot for maybe MH

[BC Tam 2]

Pre-prepared resign letter. That's something I don't want to see....

May not be pleasant, may not be fair, but in the corporate world it's more common than most of us may think possible

[Tony 1]

From what I read, fatigue problems for EK staffs - pilots of cabin crew - is kind of common. Maybe the airline should be questioned as well.

Pre-prepared resign letter. That's something I don't want to see....

 

I'd rather resign than be sacked. Looks better on record.

 

As for fatigue being an issue... As long as EK has provided the their crew with sufficient rest, as per aviation regulations (which should address the fatigue issue) and crew EBA's, the company has no control on how the crew exercise their layover period for "rest". The pilot was in MEL for 24 hours, meaning EK has provided him with 24 hours of rest (maybe less after taking away times for sign-on, sign-off, hotel transfer etc). Yes he flew 99 out of the 100 permitted per 28 days, but the fact is he was well within the rostering limits. So in this case, sufficient rest was provided, his roster was legal, but the flight was less than pleasant. Somehow his ar$e is just got on the line...

[Waiping 12]

May not be pleasant, may not be fair, but in the corporate world it's more common than most of us may think possible

 

And Malaysian political scene too.

[Izhar Z 1]

May not be pleasant, may not be fair, but in the corporate world it's more common than most of us may think possible

Is it disclosed in the contract when you sign to work for a company? Or they just e-mail the letter for you to sign once you screwed up? Surprise, surprise.......

 

 

I'd rather resign than be sacked. Looks better on record.

 

As for fatigue being an issue... As long as EK has provided the their crew with sufficient rest, as per aviation regulations (which should address the fatigue issue) and crew EBA's, the company has no control on how the crew exercise their layover period for "rest". The pilot was in MEL for 24 hours, meaning EK has provided him with 24 hours of rest (maybe less after taking away times for sign-on, sign-off, hotel transfer etc). Yes he flew 99 out of the 100 permitted per 28 days, but the fact is he was well within the rostering limits. So in this case, sufficient rest was provided, his roster was legal, but the flight was less than pleasant. Somehow his ar$e is just got on the line...

Its always better to resign than get sacked. At least they're not sacked.

EK probably provides them with sufficient rest, but even in A.net, the fatigue issue always surfaces when it comes to EK's staffs stories. As far as i remember, I don't recall reading similar issue about other airlines.

[Ryan Soh 3]

Is it disclosed in the contract when you sign to work for a company? Or they just e-mail the letter for you to sign once you screwed up? Surprise, surprise.......

Matters like these are never in a contract all spelled out for your good self to ponder over. I myself have experienced colleagues close to me who were "forced" to resign and this was especially prevalent during my company's re-org and positions were made redundant. It is not as uncommon as we think it is.

 

A mistake was made no matter how much the pilot in command would want to spin his story. How the company wants to handle it is purely arbitary. In fact, I think EK let him off rather lightly with a resignation, not a demotion or termination. He gets to keep his rank although he now has to look for another job.

[Waiping 12]

Just wondering is it common to have tail strike. What is TOGA (take off go around)? Is it a computer setting?

[flee 5]

Just wondering is it common to have tail strike. What is TOGA (take off go around)? Is it a computer setting?

It means put engines at full thrust so that aircraft takes off as quickly as possible.

[flee 5]

Emirates tail-strike crew missed chances to catch weight error

 

Australian investigators have catalogued a series of missed opportunities to catch the weight data error which led to the serious Emirates Airbus A340-500 tail-strike at Melbourne.

 

During the flight preparations, the base weight from the flight-management system, 361.9t, was augmented with a 1t allowance for last-minute changes, to produce a figure of 362.9t.

 

Probably through a simple miskeying, the first officer inadvertently entered the incorrect take-off weight for the aircraft - using the figure 262.9t rather than 362.9t - when calculating the take-off performance data through the A340's electronic flightbag.

 

This incorrect weight, 100t below the actual figure, was transcribed on to the flightplan, along with the associated performance parameters.

 

While the single electronic flightbag was handed to the captain so he could check the figures, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said: "There was a lot of activity in the cockpit at that time and it is likely that the associated distractions degraded the captain's checks, and the weight error remained undetected."

 

The pilots' procedures were also supposed to include a verbal check between them to compare the take-off weight in the flight-management system with that entered into the electronic flightbag.

 

However the "various distractions", including the first officer discussing departure clearance with air traffic control, meant this check was "omitted", said the ATSB.

 

The loadsheet confirmation procedure provided two more chances to pick up the error - the first when the first officer read the take-off weight from the flight-management system and then from calculations on the flightplan.

 

But having correctly read the former as 361.9t, the first officer initially misread the flightplan as 326.9t, then re-read it as 362.9t - the correct figure, even though this was not the one written on the plan. The first officer thought he had simply written the wrong figure, and corrected it, but this left the miscalculated performance data unchanged.

 

The second chance to capture the error came with a check of the "green dot" speed from the flight-management system and electronic flightbag.

 

While the check is intended to ensure these speeds are within 2kt (4km/h), the pilots failed to notice the two systems were displaying "green dot" speeds differing by 40kt.

 

The flight-management system read 265kt and the flightbag 225kt. "Because they both ended in a '5', the captain may not have noticed the difference in the values," the ATSB said.

 

During the take-off roll on 20 March 2009, the aircraft failed to accelerate sufficiently, using almost the entire runway before over-rotating and suffering a tail-strike 265m from the runway end, followed by two more strikes at 173m and 110m. The A340 overran, hitting infrastructure, before becoming airborne and eventually returning to land safely.

 

Investigators pointed out that the variations in parameters experienced by the crew during normal mixed-fleet operations "increased the difficulty" of the pilots to recognise suspect outputs from the electronic flightbag.

 

In the two months prior to the accident, the crew had been exposed to take-off weights varying from 150-370t, and the erroneous take-off weight of 262.9t "would not have been sufficiently conspicuous" to alert them, said the ATSB.

 

"This problem is not unique to this accident," it stated. "Previous investigations into similar data entry error and tail-strike occurrences have highlighted the inability of flightcrew to conduct a 'rule of thumb' or reasonableness check of speeds when moving between aircraft types.

 

"An unintended consequence of mixed-fleet flying appears to be a reduction in a flightcrew's ability to build a model in long-term memory to facilitate recognition of 'orders of magnitude', or a 'rule of thumb', in respect of take-off performance data."

 

Source

[Kris Kim 0]

Will there be an Aircrash Investigations/May Day episode about this incident? I would really like to see one! Sounds interesting and i'm abit curious in what actually happened.