NTSB report on a rwy excursion

Matthew

Matthew

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Matthew
I came across this today. The full report is in the PDF.

"Undetectable damage" to the aircraft prevented it from being able to fly. The Captain didn't realize it until he tried to rotate, then shut her down. His checkpilot scolded him for aborting above V1, but didn't try to override. They went off the end of the rwy.

Later inspections and wind tunnel simulations showed that high winds, blowing over a hangar, caused a dynamic load on the parked aircraft and damaged an elevator actuator which caused the right elevator to remain jammed in a nose down position.

The write up, pictures, CVR transcript, and the NTSB praise of the flight crew's professionalism is a really interesting read. Those two pilots likely saved the lives of the University of Michigan men's basketball team.

https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-releases/Pages/NR20190307.aspx

Here's the full report:

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/AAR1901.pdf
 
When this first happened, there was discussion about why he rejected T/O beyond V1. Didn't have a choice, plane wouldn't rotate!
 
midwestpa24 said:
When this first happened, there was discussion about why he rejected T/O beyond V1. Didn't have a choice, plane wouldn't rotate!
Click to expand...
Yeah, the CVR shows it:
"Rotate"
"Abort"
"Don't reject above V1!"
"It wasn't flying!"

That was a quick decision, and the right one.
 
Anyone who has had to say the magic word, "ABORT!" will get the willies just reading this...
 
I looked through that report to see what they had to say about the pre-flight inspection. It seems that while it's required of course to look at the stabilizer, there's not much to gain from doing so, as the stabilizer is 30 feet above ground and stuff can be in an extreme position due to just normal winds.
 
There was a 727 that went down in Puerto Rico if I recall where the flight engineer overrode the captain's decision to try a go around. He got a lot of flack over it (mostly from the union, Flight Engineers are not pilots), but he pretty much saved them. Due to some airline mergers and other things he had more 727 left seat time than the pilot flying at that point.
 
That’s why our company manual says abort after V1 if the plane won’t fly.
 
Matthew said:
Those two pilots likely saved the lives of the University of Michigan men's basketball team.
Click to expand...

And Austin Hatch, who wasn't on the plane, escaped having a third airplane accident.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
As if there is a choice ... unless one considers boring full chat into what lies beyond the runway.
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Well, it beats running off the end of the runway at full power.

Coming into Oshkosh doing the warbird approach to Runway 36R the year the F16 went off the end of 36L, the tower told me they wanted me to continue off the end of the runway. They then added "On purpose, there's a taxiway there."
 
Bumping this.

I’m not sure why, but something reminded me of this today. It’s worth remembering that sometime things are just not going to work, so be the PIC and do what needs doing.
 
Matthew said:
The write up, pictures, CVR transcript, and the NTSB praise of the flight crew's professionalism is a really interesting read. Those two pilots likely saved the lives of the University of Michigan men's basketball team.
Click to expand...


I pasted a quote below from the report, and it's a satisfying bit of information. I thought the check airman (PM) in the right seat showed commendable restraint in allowing the PF to abort the takeoff without touching the yoke and assisting with maximum braking, spoiler deployment, and application of reverse thrust

It could have had terrible outcome, the captain handled what must have been a huge surprise with his quick thinking and actions.

Excerpt from the probable cause statement of the report:

Contributing to the survivability of the accident was the captain’s timely and appropriate decision to reject the takeoff, the check airman’s disciplined adherence to standard operating procedures after the captain called for the rejected takeoff, and the dimensionally compliant runway safety area where the overrun occurred.
 
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