The SMT story

[Greatfox]

seeing I started this topic I can drag it horribly off-course, what's the story about SMT?

[jhm]

what's the story about SMT?

A tail strike which could have resulted in a far worse incident.

http://www.taic.org.nz/aviation/03-003.pdf

Boeing 747-412 9V-SMT, flight SQ286, tail strike during take-off, Auckland International Airport, 12 March 2003

On Wednesday 12 March 2003, at 1547, flight SQ286, a Boeing 747-412 registered 9V-SMT, started its take-off at Auckland International Airport for a direct 9-hour flight to Singapore. On board were 369 passengers, 17 cabin crew and 3 pilots.

When the captain rotated the aeroplane for lift-off the tail struck the runway and scraped for some 490 metres until the aeroplane became airborne. The tail strike occurred because the rotation speed was 33 knots less than the 163 knots required for the aeroplane weight. The rotation speed had been mistakenly calculated for an aeroplane weighing 100 tonnes less than the actual weight of 9V-SMT. A take-off weight transcription error, which remained undetected, led to the miscalculation of the take-off data, which in turn resulted in a low thrust setting and excessively slow take-off reference speeds. The system defences did not ensure the errors were detected, and the aeroplane flight management system itself did not provide a final defence against mismatched information being programmed into it. During the take-off the aeroplane moved close to the runway edge and the pilots did not respond correctly to a stall warning. Had the aeroplane moved off the runway or stalled a more serious accident could have occurred.

The aeroplane take-off performance was degraded by the inappropriately low thrust and reference speed settings, which compromised the ability of the aeroplane to cope with an engine failure and hence compromised the safety of the aeroplane and its occupants.

[Greatfox]

ah, I read about this in Singapore, so this stopped them from upgrading it?

[jhm]

http://www.singapore-window.org/sw03/031216nz.htm

Singapore Airlines said yesterday that it accepted the report's findings in full and had demoted the captain.

"The safety recommendations of the TAIC to SIA have been, or are being, implemented in full," said the carrier's public relations manager, Stephen Forshaw.

All three pilots had been reprimanded over the incident.

The captain was demoted and had since left the airline. The first officer was severely reprimanded and the third officer, who played no active part in the take-off, was "reminded of his obligations".

[jjpb3]

seeing I started this topic I can drag it horribly off-course, what's the story about SMT?

We aim to give interesting threads their own space.


jjpb3

[Greatfox]

cool! anyway, because SMT was in maintainance was that why they didn't replace the ultimo seats and AVOD?

[jhm]

Some more:

Unlike the incident report above, here's one person's view of the incident:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...8&postcount=54

and CX have had the same problem at AKL as well:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...74&postcount=1

[zvezda]

SMT stands for Scrape My Tail.

[RJA]

On Wednesday 12 March 2003, at 1547, flight SQ286, a Boeing 747-412 registered 9V-SMT, started its take-off at Auckland International Airport for a direct 9-hour flight to Singapore. On board were 369 passengers, 17 cabin crew and 3 pilots.

Gosh 1547 quite a fair way behind schedule! I wonder if SQ's strong emphasis on punctuality had led the pilots to rush things in an attempt to get underway and into SIN on time or at least with minimal delay be a reason for this careless mistake and rather serious incident.

With the ill-fated SQ006 weren't the pilots also quite keen to get underway before the typhoon potentially grounded all departing flights for the day therefore leading to a major delay?