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.
Source:The Herald Sun
By: steve rowell - 14th July 2009 at 03:00
Interesting article on pilot fatigue
http://www.airlinesafety.com/editorials/PilotFatigue.htm
By: Deano - 13th July 2009 at 20:17
The threads won’t be merged, the old one is locked and “may” be reopened should there be a need to open it, i.e. CASA Official report.
Dean
By: nJayM - 13th July 2009 at 20:05
Maybe one of the moderators would consider merging this thread titled
“Emirates A345 tail strike Captain breaks his silence!!! “
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=92421
with
“Emirates A345 tail strike at Melbourne “
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/sho…+strike&page=3
In the Boeing and Airbus world of modern airliners I would have thought that load/weight distribution infomation could be automated with simple load sensors at strategic points.
Laptops manually keyed in with values of the load isn’t a very risk reducing measure.
Pilot fatigue or no fatigue it simply is a primitive manual system.
This is a definite case of automation which if necessary can be cross checked by pilots before take off with data provided by airline/airport ground crew cargo weight records.
By: Whiskey Delta - 13th July 2009 at 19:47
I know there is considerable focus on the subjects of Crew Resource Management (CRM) and Human Performance and Limitations (HPL) during flight training, at least in some European countries. Afterall, HPL is part of the current JAR-FCL (now EASA?) curriculum for ATPL-A.
I’ve heard that some airlines in Europe conduct some sort of CRM training for their crews. I don’t know if that comes from company initiatives or requirements or recommendations made by the aviation authorities, though.
CRM is a pretty big topic in the States as well. We’ve also added TEM (Threat and Error Management) to the mix. CRM tackles issues of people working together while TEM tackles people working together to deal with problems. It’s a lot of good stuff but it’s a bit moot when crews are numb from lack of sleep or excessive duty days.
By: PMN - 13th July 2009 at 18:00
That can never happen or give accurate results, the Airbus is a long aircraft and will be C of G sensitive, all you need is a forward or aft C of G near it’s limits and the sensors are sure to give spurious readings. It must have been thought of by now.
Surely the sum of those sensors will amount to a certain number and that number will possibly indicate something’s wrong somewhere? Bearing in mind I’m no mechanic so if that assumption is wrong then by all means correct me!
Paul
By: Primate - 13th July 2009 at 11:51
The first thing an airline will do after an incident/accident is comb through their procedures and find everything that the crew didn’t follow, no matter how small or intentional or not. From that they build a case against the crew in an attempt to minimize the inevitable lawsuits. (don’t blame us, blame them). Only after that dust settles and the official findings are delivered will the operator be obligated to change their procedures to prevent such things from happening again.
Here in the States there is a rush of interest to prevent an accident like the Colgan Q400 crash which has roots in the fatigue issue. The Colgan company has issued their “blame the pilots” statements but it has fallen a bit on deaf ear as it’s clear they pushed the limits on what is legal vs. what is safe when it comes to the fatigue issue. Not that anyone has try to justify the actions/inactions of the crew, just that some operators don’t help the situation by pushing duty and flight time limits.
One would hope that, as you stated, the first reaction would be to right a wrong. Unfortunately with money hungry lawyers out there they circle the wagons and try to deflect the blame to the crew.
What a shame. I heard about the procedure of “company troubleshooting” from a person who has experience with airlines and flight training (mainly from Europe, I think). Maybe the procedure isn’t as common as I initially thought.
I know there is considerable focus on the subjects of Crew Resource Management (CRM) and Human Performance and Limitations (HPL) during flight training, at least in some European countries. Afterall, HPL is part of the current JAR-FCL (now EASA?) curriculum for ATPL-A.
I’ve heard that some airlines in Europe conduct some sort of CRM training for their crews. I don’t know if that comes from company initiatives or requirements or recommendations made by the aviation authorities, though.
By: Distiller - 13th July 2009 at 09:52
You know, if they can’t figure it out onboard then let’s park them on networked weigh pads!
By: Deano - 13th July 2009 at 08:28
I don’t think the remark was ignorant. I made a comment and acknowledged that I had little understanding of what I was talking about. In particular, when I said that I probably shouldn’t comment and then suggested that any of the forum’s pilots comment on the hour situation.
Michael
Sorry I didn’t mean to sound pretentious, just stating the difference between flight hrs & duty hrs will be large.
Distiller
That can never happen or give accurate results, the Airbus is a long aircraft and will be C of G sensitive, all you need is a forward or aft C of G near it’s limits and the sensors are sure to give spurious readings. It must have been thought of by now.
By: Distiller - 13th July 2009 at 05:42
Besides doing the right thing at the end, selecting max thrust, the crew clearly ****** up at multiple points and caused major damage. No hero award thus.
But 50% of fault also should go to Airbus that such a critical parameter is not taken automatically from sensors in the landing gear, but instead relies on more or less correct estimations and error-prone human data input.
By: T5 - 13th July 2009 at 04:58
T5, perhaps you should keep your opinions to yourself.
Dxb Driver, I am sure you can understand that a forum where opinions are not expressed is sure not to be an exciting one! I have explained twice already that my comments about hours are based on nothing – I don’t know how many hours is ‘too many’ when it comes to flying. That aside, I think everything else I mentioned is just as you put it.
By: Whiskey Delta - 13th July 2009 at 04:50
I’m under the impression that many airlines/operators first have a look at their own organisations after incidents happen. “Where did we go wrong to potentially cause this?” might be a question an operator should ask itself at an early point after something like this has happened.
The first thing an airline will do after an incident/accident is comb through their procedures and find everything that the crew didn’t follow, no matter how small or intentional or not. From that they build a case against the crew in an attempt to minimize the inevitable lawsuits. (don’t blame us, blame them). Only after that dust settles and the official findings are delivered will the operator be obligated to change their procedures to prevent such things from happening again.
Here in the States there is a rush of interest to prevent an accident like the Colgan Q400 crash which has roots in the fatigue issue. The Colgan company has issued their “blame the pilots” statements but it has fallen a bit on deaf ear as it’s clear they pushed the limits on what is legal vs. what is safe when it comes to the fatigue issue. Not that anyone has try to justify the actions/inactions of the crew, just that some operators don’t help the situation by pushing duty and flight time limits.
One would hope that, as you stated, the first reaction would be to right a wrong. Unfortunately with money hungry lawyers out there they circle the wagons and try to deflect the blame to the crew.
By: steve rowell - 13th July 2009 at 04:16
T5
The guys made a mistake for sure, we as humans will always make mistakes, this is undeniable. Theirs was a rather an big one. Why did these highly experienced indiviuals make these errors? EK has changed their procedures since, is that an admission of fault within their procedures, I would say absolutely it is. Perhaps the training was at fault, or should I say lack of it!!!
DXB Driver.
It all boils down to fatigue…everybody makes mistakes when they’re sleep deprived…and these individuals were certainly pushing the envelope
By: keltic - 12th July 2009 at 20:12
Whatever the reality is, he shouldn´t have talked as if he was in the middle of a crash film. It´s simply alarmist. Most of us prefer to think that things are under control, and if they are not, adding these remarks doesn´t help to improve the confidence in aviation.
A little bit more of prudence, please.
By: Primate - 12th July 2009 at 17:23
After such a serious mistake, I would have expected sleepless nights for weeks or months!
I’m probably picking on a figure of speech here, but I think brain damage and then death occurs after some weeks without sleep.
The guys made a mistake for sure, we as humans will always make mistakes, this is undeniable. Theirs was a rather an big one. Why did these highly experienced indiviuals make these errors? EK has changed their procedures since, is that an admission of fault within their procedures, I would say absolutely it is. Perhaps the training was at fault, or should I say lack of it!!!
I’m under the impression that many airlines/operators first have a look at their own organisations after incidents happen. “Where did we go wrong to potentially cause this?” might be a question an operator should ask itself at an early point after something like this has happened.
If I may ask about your opinion, is/was EK an exception or do many operators today have the habit of acting out against their own crews rather than searching themselves? Are there any distinct global variations when it comes to organisation and culture (leadership!) within airlines?
By: Ren Frew - 12th July 2009 at 17:11
This is a press report??? enough said.
Paul
I’m with this guy…:cool:
By: Dxb Driver - 12th July 2009 at 16:22
T5, perhaps you should keep your opinions to yourself. I fly for EK, and I can tell you that there is a LOT of journalistic waffle in the aforementioned “news” item.
The guys made a mistake for sure, we as humans will always make mistakes, this is undeniable. Theirs was a rather an big one. Why did these highly experienced indiviuals make these errors? EK has changed their procedures since, is that an admission of fault within their procedures, I would say absolutely it is. Perhaps the training was at fault, or should I say lack of it!!!
The investigation should be completed by the competent authorities first(CASA), before any disciplinary procedures are taken. Instead EK management rule by fear, able to ruin a families lives, before they have any idea as to why the incident took place!
It was a close call, but most pilots I know at EK fear it will happen at EK, unless one local idoit in flt ops resigns, or is given the boot.
DXB Driver.
By: T5 - 12th July 2009 at 15:51
Your comments about 99hrs in a month being reasonable is a little ignorant.
I don’t think the remark was ignorant. I made a comment and acknowledged that I had little understanding of what I was talking about. In particular, when I said that I probably shouldn’t comment and then suggested that any of the forum’s pilots comment on the hour situation.
By: Deano - 12th July 2009 at 09:39
T5
Most of what you say I agree with, they weren’t heros as such, but they did a remarkable job in saving the aircraft, just the same as the Air Transat pilots did a great job when they glided their a/c into the Azores.
100 tonnes difference in the performance calculations is unacceptable.
Your comments about 99hrs in a month being reasonable is a little ignorant. You have to remember this is flight hrs, not duty hrs. Their duty hours would be significantly more than this, and it’s duty hrs that count. It’s just a shame he didn’t reveal how long they were on duty.
Dean
By: pierrepjc - 12th July 2009 at 07:36
This is a press report??? enough said.
Paul
By: T5 - 12th July 2009 at 05:07
I cannot help but feel that this man is trying to make himself sound like a hero, which, based on that, he certainly isn’t! To cut a long story short, he (or his first officer) messed up, and the mistake, according to Emirates, went unnoticed during all four of the pre-flight checks that should have taken place! For the pair of them to have been ‘forced to resign’ seems fair to me. Their incompetence was, after all, responsible for this mess.
As for fatigue, perhaps I should not comment, but 99 hours in a month seems reasonable to me, and this captain could easily have managed more than the few hours of sleep he apparently had before the flight. Maybe some of the forum’s pilots can comment better on this?
“The brush with death upset him so badly he had not slept for four days after the accident”. Just four days? After such a serious mistake, I would have expected sleepless nights for weeks or months! Imagine how unbearable it would have been for relatives of passengers on board, who could have been killed, and then for them to discover that the flight had crashed as a result of pilot error.
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July 12, 2009 at 4:42 am