Newsstand - Emirates emergency landing - EK407 tail hit on takeoff

SMH reports... I'll add the Emirates thread if one exists, should it be appropriate to close this thread and continue discussion in the EK forum.

Emirates flight makes emergency landing (http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/emirates-flight-makes-emergency-landing-20090321-94w9.html) [SMH]

An Emirates flight has made an emergency landing in Melbourne after the Airbus A340's tail struck the tarmac on take-off.

Flight EK407, headed for Dubai with 225 passengers on board, had to dump fuel and there were reports of smoke filling the cabin before the plane made an emergency landing about 30 minutes after the 10.30pm (AEDT) take-off on Friday night.

A Melbourne Airport spokesman said no passengers were injured.

"It was what's known in the industry as a tail hit at take-off. It took off very steeply, the tail touched the end of the runway, and it (the plane) went up, stabilised and came back," he said.

Pax had to be put up at a hotel overnight.
As the story mentions, this is a factor for some extra-long aircraft.

Wow! It must to be coming out everything is good. I don't seems anything wrong the aircraft. So it was smooth to made emergency landing. So the entire aircraft will have grounded due to inspections the aircraft.

SMH / AAP reports (and shows an image from pprune):
Emirates pilots resign after Melbourne Airport incident (http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/emirates-pilots-resign-after-melbourne-airport-incident-20090403-9lxh.html) [SMH]
]he two Emirates airline pilots involved in last month's emergency landing at Melbourne Airport have resigned.

...The flight, with 224 passengers on board, was forced to dump fuel before attempting to land. The plane landed without incident and no passengers were injured.

Emirates would not comment on the investigation into the incident, but confirmed that the pilots had submitted their resignations.

Sorry I haven't seen much more here on FT; I imagine AFF and pprune will have more if anyone's wanting more.

Good thing that wasn't my flight! I was just on an ex-MEL EK flight...

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) says in a statement that after the tail-strike "the crew noticed that an incorrect weight had been inadvertently entered into the laptop when completing the take-off performance calculations prior to departure."

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/04/30/325865/emirates-a340-tail-strike-attributed-to-pilot-error.html

Quite a scary situation, given that very basic procedures, not followed, resulted in such a dangerous scenario at takeoff - as a result of human error, compounded by failiure to follow safety procedures:

Cockpit mayhem: the take-off that went wrong (http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/cockpit-mayhem-the-takeoff-that-went-wrong-20090430-aoyo.html)[The Age, 1 May]
...the nose came up — but the rest of the Airbus stayed glued to the tarmac. The jet's rear hit the runway with a bang. Spewing a trail of sparks, it hit the runway twice more, puncturing the skin of the jet, tearing off a panel and breaching the air pressurisation.

Frightened passengers saw a flash and the sparks. Soon, they smelt burning. The cabin crew could not tell them what was happening.

As the jet reached the end of the 3657-metre runway, it was travelling at more than 290 km/h. Now the captain switched the thrust levers, overriding the other controls to give full power to the engines. The jet began climbing. But it was still too low, hitting a runway light, then antenna equipment on the ground.

Twice more, the tail scraped across the grass at the end of the runway. With barely seconds to spare, the jet rose over the grassy slopes outside the airport and finally reached a safe height.