30 Vol. 9 / No. 12/ December/January 2017/18 Global Aviator
Airline incidents
After barely missing a
2.24m tall airport perimeter
fence and clearing a small
brick building by a mere
50cm, it was described
as the most dangerous
non-fatal jet airliner
accident in Australia.Of course after the incident a
number of questions were raised:- Was there an engine failure?
- Did one or more of the cargo
containers break loose during
the take-off process? - Or perhaps it was human error?
50 cm from disaster
Emirates Flight 407
by Jolandie De Jaager - pics ATSB
Emirates flight 407 was a
scheduled flight on its way from
Melbourne to Dubai with 257
passengers and 18 crew members
when it failed to take off properly,
resulting in the airplane hitting
several structures at the end of the
runway before it could eventually
climb enough in order to return
to the airport for a safe landing.
The aircraft was an Airbus A340-541,
with registration number A6-ERG and,
although not written off, the damage
to the plane was severe enough for the
incident to be classified as an accident by
the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
This is what happened on the night
of 20 March 2009.Tail strike
and runway overrun
At 22:30 flight 407 gets ready for
take-off using runway 16 which
is 3 657 meters long.
Travelling at a speed of 270
kilometres per hour, 1 043m before
the end of the runway, the first officer
was told by the captain to rotate but
as he tried to lift the plane off the
ground, the plane pitched upwards
but failed to leave the runway. The
tail section struck the ground and
continued to scrape along the runway
leaving behind a trail of sparks. As the
airplane reached the end of the runway,
the captain took over the controls.