Possible Tailstrike UA 744

[Philip Argy]

Originally Posted by Andrew

Are they? I would think 'rate-of-climb', but not degrees of rotation as that is aircraft design specific?

Good point, Andrew. There's often an increased climb angle to go with increased performance but that angle is more often established after rotation when there's ground clearance available. Still, perhaps tail strikes are more likely if the pilot is planning a steep climb angle and inadvertently establishes that angle on rotation.

Also, in response to Mark W, United is bound by our legislative reporting requirements independently of its internal or FAA reporting requirements, so an immediately reportable incident would have to be reported to ATSB even if UA or FAA policy didn't require that. Usually there isn't much discrepancy but it's still our law that UA and crew have to comply with.

[Donald H]

Thanks Stefan. Any idea why?

[Mark W]

The point I was making is ICAO / IOSA standards from the relevant ICAO Annex, from which the Transport Regulations are derived lists "ground contact during landing or takeoff, including tail strike/over rotation and pod or wing strike" as an "operational occurence" - it is not an "immediately reportable" incident.

The crew follow their Policy and Procedures Manual with regards to Safety Reporting - which will be wholly to their carrier (the Flight Safety Department) not to outside agencies.

It is the carriers responsibility to make the assessment as to what is or must be reported, and if the requirement exits on United's Ops Spec for operations to Australia that they must independantly report any incidents to the ATSB (ie not via Annex 13 conventions [to NTSB to ATSB] because of Australian Law), then they will do so.

My experience with tail strikes is few are pilot technique - most are environmental and in aircraft like the B747, as flight crew you are not normally aware that it has occurred until ATC or another aircraft notify you - or more usually, the F/A's seated at the back call though a "loud bang" on take-off, to the flight deck during the sterile period.

[Mark W]

The ATSB is investigating -

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/...-2010-029.aspx

[Noel White]

N128UA departed SYD today at 1045 as UAL9918

[Philip Argy]

Originally Posted by Mark W

The ATSB is investigating -

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/...-2010-029.aspx

There's an echo from post 33: http://yssyforum.net/board/showpost....0&postcount=33

[Simon Jackman]

Originally Posted by Noel White

N128UA departed SYD today at 1045 as UAL9918

And went to RKPK. See http://flightaware.com/live/flight/U...016Z/YSSY/RKPK

Repairs/inspections there?

[Fred C]

Seoul is a heavy maintenance facility for United. It went directly the for a permanent repair. A temporary repair was done in Syd by QF sheetmetal personnel.
It will probably take about a week.

For Philip. It is not serious damage. It was only a light scratch really. No parts fell off, apart from some shaved aluminium and the area of the fuselage is unpressurised so not structurally critical. If no-one told them about it, it would of happily flown to the states and been discovered there. Saving about 100,000 litres of fuel. However, you don't know this until you look, on the ground.

Maybe they could have scrambled an F/A 18 with a ground engineer on board to inspect the damage....................Lucky engineer I say.

[D Chan]

Originally Posted by Fred C

A temporary repair was done in Syd by QF sheetmetal personnel.

explains why a United 744 was sitting in the jetbase near the roundabout.

Originally Posted by Fred C

For Philip. It is not serious damage. It was only a light scratch really. No parts fell off, apart from some shaved aluminium and the area of the fuselage is unpressurised so not structurally critical. If no-one told them about it, it would of happily flown to the states and been discovered there. Saving about 100,000 litres of fuel. However, you don't know this until you look, on the ground.

Not sure if this is relevant but I thought I'd point out that UA has a metallic strip of some sort that runs along the base of the fuselage on a number of aircraft types in their fleet. Is this some sort of protection against tailstrikes because I think they would have otherwised painted the area in blue. Also noticed this type of strip on other carriers

[Fred C]

Originally Posted by D Chan

UA has a metallic strip of some sort that runs along the base of the fuselage on a number of aircraft types in their fleet. Is this some sort of protection against tailstrikes.

The strip you speak of is just an unpainted area of the fuselage. It is part of their colour scheme. I suspect it comes from the early 70's when most airlines had the bare aluminium along the bottom of the fuselage from front to rear. It was an easy way of preventing the paint scheme being damaged from the 47 various fluids that inevitably leak from an aircraft. The hydraulic fluid acts as an excellent paint stripper.
So rather than a constant cycle of clean and paint all the time they just leave it alone and polish it every so often.