American B738 at Los Angeles on Jan 3rd 2011, tail strike on takeoff

Last Update: January 16, 2013 / 13:40:16 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jan 3, 2011

Classification
Accident

Airline
American Airlines

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

The NTSB released their factual report reporting the takeoff weight was 161,037 pounds with center of gravity at 22.5% MAC resulting in a V1 and Vr of 153 KIAS and a V2 of 158 KIAS with flaps selected to position 1.

The aircraft accelerated for takeoff on runway 07L, when according to crew testimony an automated V1 call occurred about 20 knots early and the captain, pilot flying, began to rotate the aircraft. According to the flight data recorder the first control inputs to raise the nose occurred at 123 KIAS (30 knots early). The captain said in post flight interviews that after he realized the airspeed was too low he eased the nose wheel back onto the ground and rotated again at about 155 KIAS. The flight data recorder showed that the control colum inputs eased slightly after the aircraft had rotated to 7 degrees nose up, then commanded the nose up again until it reached about 11 degrees and the aircraft became airborne at 148 KIAS. Cabin crew expressed concern in flight that the aircraft may have suffered a tail strike on departure, the aircraft continued to Toronto however. Following landing damage to the tail skid was discovered, the crew made according log book entries.

The aircraft was ferried to Tulsa for further examination, that revealed abrasions to the tail skid assembly and ancilliary components, repairs were needed to external fasteners, skin and related components. The examination also revealed the aft pressure bulkhead had buckled requiring a repair doubler to be placed around the damaged area together with 3 fillers. This bulkhead damage affected the structural integrity of the aircraft and was the reason for the NTSB's classification as accident.

On Jan 16th 2013 the NTSB released their final report concluding the probable cause of the accident was:

the early rotation of the airplane to an angle at which the fuselage contacted the runway.

Contributing to early rotation was the CaptainÂ’s reaction to the erroneous V1 automated callout, likely assuming that the airplane was at or close to the correct Vr at the same time.

The erroneous automated callout was likely due to a keystroke entry error by the FO when manually entering takeoff data for a newly assigned departure runway.
Incident Facts

Date of incident
Jan 3, 2011

Classification
Accident

Airline
American Airlines

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

This article is published under license from Avherald.com. © of text by Avherald.com.
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