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A Qatar Airways Boeing 777-300, registration A7-BAC performing flight QR-778 from Miami,FL (USA) to Doha (Qatar) with 279 people on board, lined up runway 09 at taxiway T1 (approximately 2600 meters/8500 feet takeoff distance available, full runway length 3968 meters/13,016 feet) and departed Miami’s runway 09 but struck the approach lights runway 27 during departure. Both tower, departure controllers as well as crew maintained routine communication. The aircraft continued to destination for a landing without further incident about 13.5 hours later.
On Sep 17th 2015 the FAA reported the aircraft struck approach lights on departure from Miami and continued to destination. The aircraft received substantial damage to its belly, the occurrence was rated an accident.
On Oct 18th 2015 the NTSB reported the occurrence was rated an incident, the investigation was delegated to the Civil Aviation Authority of Qatar, the NTSB have assigned an accredited representative to assist the investigation.
On Dec 7th 2015 Qatar’s Civil Aviation Authority (QCAA) released their preliminary report reporting the crew computed their takeoff performance for runway 09 based on a takeoff mass of 342,000kg using their onboard tools within the Electronic Flight Bag. That tool offered only one option 09#T1, which is being understood as a runway full length takeoff. The tool further displayed information that intersection takeoffs were not permitted for that runway. The information was printed out, however, the printout did not contain the information that intersection departures were not permitted. The crew opted for a derated takeoff increasing the assumed takeoff temperature to 36 degrees Celsius.
During taxi the commander used his electronic flight bag to monitor the aircraft position and verify taxiway names. Taxiing along taxiway S the commander zoomed in into the map to read the taxiway names but lost oversight, in particular where he was with respect to the runway threshold (see map display below).
The relief captain also was monitoring the taxi progress on his tablet computer but put the computer away after the aircraft joined taxiway S believing it was now a straight taxi to the runway threshold.
The QCAA wrote: “As they taxied along S the commander decided that the aircraft could depart from the runway intersection T1. He could not recall why he made that decision, but believed it may have been because the printed information displayed ‘Runway 09#T1’ in a compelling way. The printed information contained no reference to the fact intersection departures were not permissible from this runway (Figure 3), and contained the message ‘No NOTAM data found’. The commander requested the operating first officer to advise ATC that they were able to depart from intersection T1. The first officer glanced at his notes and saw he had written ‘09/(T1)#’, which made him believe that this was an acceptable line-up point for take-off, he called ATC advising them that they were able to take T1 for departure from Runway 09. As this was not what relief crew recalled had been briefed, they queried T1. The commander made a hand gesture and said something which he thought was seeking reassurance from the crew that everything was OK. The operating first officer confirmed that he was content with T1, but the relief crew interpreted the commander’s communication as him confirming he was content with a T1 departure so, thinking they had missed the operating pilots recalculating the take-off performance from T1 and did not voice any further concerns.”
The QCAA concluded their summary of the crew report: “The aircraft was then cleared to line-up with another aircraft reported on final approach, requiring an expeditious departure. The crew reported that as they lined up they were not visual with the end of the runway nor were they aware they had approximately 1,000m of runway behind them. The available take-off distance from T1 is approximately 2,610m. During the take-off roll, as the aircraft approached V1 the crew became aware that something was not right, and they recalled the aircraft entering the alternating red and white runway centreline lights which indicated they had approximately 900 m of runway remaining. The commander assessed the speed of the aircraft, the rate of acceleration and the runway remaining and concluded the safest course of action was to continue. He recalled as he rotated the aircraft entered the red runway centreline lights (indicating only 300 m of runway remaining.) None of the crew, including the cabin crew were aware that the aircraft made contact with the Runway 27 approach lights as it got airborne, and the aircraft continued uneventfully to Doha, a flight time of 13.5 hours. There were no abnormal cabin pressurisation indications during the flight.”
The QCAA reported that according to the flight data recorder the aircraft lined up runway 09 at taxiway T1 with 2,610 meters of runway remaining. The actual ground run of the aircraft was 2,866 meters before the main gear left the ground, the QCAA wrote: “the aircraft was still on the ground as it left the runway”. Airport security cameras then showed the aircraft made contact with a number of approach lights runway 27.
The aircraft received a tear of 46cm length in the fuselage behind the rear cargo door, which breached the pressure vessel. Numerous dents and scratches were distributed over an area of 18 square meters of the fuselage skin, overall 90 individual areas needing repairs. In addition there was damage to a metal guard of the left main gear.
The QCAA rated the occurrence a serious incident despite the substantial damage as described qualifying the occurrence as accident according to ICAO. The Aviation Herald therefore returned to the accident rating as initially correctly indicated by the FAA.
Credit: Aviation Herald
