Luck saves the day Yet again, crew behaviour and training is a headline issue – I refer to the China Eastern Airbus A340 "serious tailscrape" (Flight International, 19-25 April). How can a major airline create cockpit crew resource management (or lack of) that allows a commander to continue a flight after a tailscrape – contravening all known safety culture practice? Any suggestion of airframe damage, notably the air traffic control warning, should see an immediate return. In deciding to continue, how did this crew know that there was no damage to the pressure bulkhead or to the structural integrity of the airframe? How did they know that in the ensuing flight of at least 11h, a damage resultant failure and consequent explosive decompression would not take place? Who decided to pressurise the hull on the climb out? Why was the operations manual ignored? The cited nose pitching (VR+), and the cause thereof is an issue on its own – could this be the Airbus primary flight display cursor/control debate again? What does the decision to continue tell us about the vagaries of training, culture, cockpit resource management and flight safety? Meanwhile, luck has yet again saved the day Lance Cole Swindon, Wiltshire, UK
Do we have amnesia A Japanese Boeing 747 had a tailscrape. The repair of the damaged rear pressure bulkhead was botched and later, when it let go, the fin exploded killing many A Continental Boeing 777 had a tailscrape at Newark on 2 March and damaged its rear pressure bulkhead. It was dutifully relanded. A China Eastern Airbus A340 scrapes its tail at Heathrow on 7 April and, even though warned by air traffic control, the captain presses on. Do we have amnesia? Where are we heading? How do you push an airliner when you are in no position to assess the structural damage? N K Krishnan Bangalore, India
History repeats itself History repeats itself, first as farce, secondly as tragedy: luckily more by chance than design in the China Eastern A340-300 Heathrow tailstrike of 7 April. The Emirates A-340-300 Johannesburg runway overrun of 9 April 2004 showed some eerie similarities. The apparent similarities are the almost identical pitch excursions. In the Emirates case, the pilot chased the primary flight display's (PFD) moving pitch attitude scale with the sidestick position symbol. Pitching downwards to hold the sidestick position initially aligned with the desired rotation attitude – an elementary error for this aircraft. The operational divergence was after the fact in both cases. In the Emirates case, the crew returned having sustained obvious damage. The China Eastern crew, having possibly committed the same initial error as the Emirates crew, elected to carry on regardless despite probable passenger/cabin crew tactile clues of a tailstrike and air traffic control verbal confirmation Lessons? Anyone can have a bad day and make an initial error. But being unaware of the extent of obvious structural damage and pressing ahead pressurised, inviting explosive decompression, is completely reckless. The witting/unwitting passengers on this China Eastern flight were well and truly Shanghaied and the slow boat to China sounds ever more appealing. David Connolly Brussels, Belgium
Sport and fitness The manufacturers of light sports aircraft expect to base their success on pilots "concerned about failing an aviation physical", since a provison in the sport-pilot rule grants medical clearances on the basis of owning a driver's licence (Flight International, 26 April–2 May). In practice, "concerned about failing" presumably will mean "reasonably expecting to fail or having failed" – else why not take the physical and continue to enjoy the full rights of a pilot? In consequence, if the manufacturers have their way, a large portion of light sports aircraft will be piloted by people who are at best only marginally fit. This is certainly not in the spirit of the sport-pilots rule, which to my understanding was intended to reduce the administrative and cost barriers to entry for beginning pilots, not to keep those flying who are safer on the ground. Dr Alexander Zschocke Hürth, Germany
If not BA? BA: the world's favourite airline; CAA: the world's most respected civil aviation authority; FAA: the administration handling the largest single domestic market and one of the most influential aviation bodies. What if the BA 747 three-engine incident happened to another airline not operating under those highly respected conditions? What would have been the reaction of those authorities towards that airline/country? Anything about unsafe airlines ring a bell? Hisham Cararah Cairo, Egypt
Source: Flight International
