Originally Posted by
CousinEddie
Ehhhh. OK. Yeah, whatever.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accident: Delta B752 at Atlanta on Mar 7th 2013, tail strike on landing
By Simon Hradecky, created Monday, Feb 3rd 2014 23:06Z, last updated Thursday, Feb 27th 2014 12:00Z
A Delta Airlines Boeing 757-200, registration N698DL performing flight DL-1693 from Santa Ana,CA to Atlanta,GA (USA) with 142 passengers and 6 crew, was on approach to Atlanta's runway 28 at 19:21L (00:21Z Mar 8th), clear skies, visibility 10km or more. The aircraft's Vref was computed at 129 KIAS at flaps 25, and the aircraft was flown at Vref. Upon landing the first officer, pilot monitoring, announced "speedbrakes not activated", the captain, pilot flying, felt the aircraft was floating and attempted to maintain landing attitude. The speed decayed to 115 KIAS, the pitch attitude increased to 11 degrees and the tail made contact with the runway. The aircraft subsequently rolled out without further incident and taxied to the gate, where ground personnel informed the crew about damage to the tail of the aircraft.
The accident became known through a brief factual report released by the NTSB in 2014.
The NTSB reported the aircraft received substantial damage to the aft pressurization dome, which buckled, as well as several stringers, there was also an 8 feet long scrape on the lower aft fuselage.
According to the flight data recorder the aircraft made an initial touchdown followed by a brief gear squat switch deactivation indicative of a slight bounce or light touchdown, the speedbrakes were then manually deployed.
On Feb 27th 2014 the NTSB released their brief final report concluding the probable cause of the accident was:
the pilot's failure to maintain correct airspeed and pitch attitude at touchdown