What Happened To The Emirates Flight 407?
It was on March 20, 2009, Emirates Flight 407 narrowly escaped the wreckage at Melbourne Airport. The Airbus A340–500 aircraft operated by Emirates was scheduled to fly from Auckland to Dubai but survived the tailstrike on take-off and ran over. However, several infrastructures were hit on the runway before it took off and returned for a safe landing.
No deaths or injuries were recorded.
As classified by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the tailstrike of Emirates Flight 407 was an “accident” which cost heavily for the plane itself. The damage to the Airbus A340–500 was severe, and the cause of the accident was reported to be incorrect take-off performance parameters. Aviation officials considered the incident ‘as close as we have ever come to a major aviation catastrophe in Australia.’
Flight Details
The Airbus A340–50 was on the verge of take-off its flight from Auckland to Dubai with a stopover in Melbourne, Australia. The flight was set to depart at 10:25 pm (local time), and the total flight hours were around 14 and 8 minutes.
18 crew and 257 passengers were on board when the plane went through a tail strike. The report said they “sustained a tailstrike and overran the end of the runway on departure from Melbourne Airport, Victoria.”
As scheduled, the Airbus A340–50 took off from Melbourne Airport at 22:30 from runway 16. When the plane was traveling at the speed of 270 km/h (146 km) before the end of the runway, the flight captain ordered the first captain to rotate 1,043 m (3,422 ft). The aircraft did not take off from the ground; its tail got struck and scraped along the runway.
After the strike, the captain used take-off/go-around detent to employ the thrust on the plane’s four engines.
Airbus A340–50 left the ground at the end of the runway, which is 148 m (486 ft) beyond it (runway). The captain explained the incident later, saying, ‘I thought we were going to die. It was that close.’
Though no human losses were recorded, the plane was heavily got dispatched. It hit the strobe light during its struggle at the end of the runway. The landing gear struck and damaged the 1.8 m-high (5 ft 11 in) localizer array antenna at 350 m (1,148 ft) beyond the runway’s end. The airplane missed the 2.24 m (7 ft 4 in) tall airport boundary fence at a distance of approximately 500 m (1,640 ft) beyond the runway’s end.
The aircraft had successfully climbed over Port Phillip Bay when the first officer noted that he had miscalculated the aircraft’s weight by 100 tonnes (262.9 tons instead of 362.9). The electronic flight bag was used to calculate the take-off performance. As a result, the flying crews discovered the incorrect flex map was applied during the take-off, which led to low engine thrust, poor acceleration, and airspeed.
At 23:27, it was reported that there was smoke in the cabin after the pilot finished dumping fuel. Later, they requested the air control traffic to return for a safe landing, which they did at 23:36 — no further incidents were recorded.
Airbus A340–50’s Wrong Take-off Metrics | Inside Cockpit Story
Airbus A340–50 met with a tragic accident on March 20, 2009, and the reports showed that the wrong take-off metrics led to this mishap. The data-entry error resulted in insufficient engine thrust during the plane’s take-off.
The first officer first calculated the take-off metrics of Airbus 340–50 on the electronic flight bag on runway 16. The wind parameters, take-off weight, altimeter settings, temperature, air conditioning, flap configuration, runway condition, and other data were checked. Those data were copied from the electronic bag to the master flight plan.
The flight captain re-checked the data in the master flight plan once again to know if they were currently logged. As per the record, the plane’s weight was 361.9 tons initially, but the first officer logged it as 326.9 tons. Later, he (the first officer) corrected the data and logged 362.9 tons — it shows that one ton of additional weight was added during the take-off of Airbus 340–50.
Even with an extra ton of weight, the plane was given the all-clear to take off from runway 16. Although the pilots hit their rotation with the calculated speed, the nose of the aircraft rose slowly, and it did not leave the ground.
By the time the captain knew something was wrong, he applied the maximum thrust on four Rolls-Royce engines, but since the plane’s acceleration increased at once, it ran out of the runway. However, the aircraft was airborne after three seconds.
The plane had a narrow escape, but eventually, its tail struck the light pole and ILS Antenna at runway 16. The Melbourne ATC mentioned the tailstrike to the pilots, after which they decided to return for a safe landing. Airbus was fueled for 14 hours of flight, so the weight was heavy for landing. So, they flew over to 7000 feet for fuel dumping so that it would be easy for them to carry on the safe landing process.
As for the safe landing process, the captain declared a pan call, and four crew members were allotted 280 tons as the landing weight, which was way too much more than the regular landing weight.
When the plane descended at 6500 feet, the flight attendant mentioned that there was rumbling on the aircraft, and they could smell the smoke inside. The captain then requested the Melbourne ATC to clear out for landing, and runway 34 was cleared off for the process. Nearly after an hour after take-off, the Airbus 340–50 finally landed with no signs of fire, and passengers were disembarked after it was taken to the terminal.
Wreckage And Damages
The Airbus 340–50 had already gone through a tail strike, deteriorating most of the back parts of the plane. It had tailstrike protection built into the A340–500; however, the rear pressure bulkhead and the underlying structure were damaged.
Also, the findings found that the plane’s fuselage was heavily damaged since it scraped along runway 34 during the safe landing.
The aircraft was finally returned to Emirates on June 9, 2009, via Perth, Singapore, Dubai, and Cairo. The return flight was a low-altitude flight without pressurization that flew below 12,000 feet (3700 meters).
Aftermath And Investigation of the Accident
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) later investigated the Airbus 340–50 accident. The motive was to find out how the first officer logged the inaccurate data regarding the aircraft’s weight and why the mistake should have been noticed firsthand before the take-off.
Further investigation worked on why the crew members did not notice the slow acceleration of the plane than usual. Reports show that they eventually found it after running over 3.6 kilometers (12,000-foot) runway.
The pilots were questioned regarding the accident when they returned to Dubai. The captain and the first officers resigned from duty as they were asked.
Despite all that, studies have shown that the crew might need help finding the incorrect data logged in the avionic equipment. So, it resulted in a lagged take-off. Later, the safety recommendation to the US Federal Aviation Administration was issued by ATSB. Likewise, the International Air Transport Association and the Flight Safety Foundation also received the safety notice.
Also, the development of software for pilots to recognize the take-off performance was investigated. After a couple of years, in October 2011, ATSB came up with its findings regarding the accident of Airbus 340–50 on March 20, 2009. The results showed a human error that led to the horrendous mishap. On the other hand, there was an urge related to the development of technology for alerting pilots about wrong entries in the data metrics.
In the meantime, the Airbus 340–50 operator Emirates investigated the preflight procedures and made it compulsory to duplicate laptops to ensure dual data entry. Similarly, work on take-off acceleration monitoring and alerting technology has also been in action. Emirates announced they would use software to calculate the metrics in October 2011.
