Description

On 23 April 2005, a Boeing 737-800 being operated by Turkish charter airline Sky Air on a passenger flight from Stuttgart to Dusseldorf tipped onto its tail when take off thrust was applied for the intended departure from Runway 25 in normal day visibility. The attempt to take off was immediately abandoned and the aircraft towed back to the gate for the 100 passengers to disembark. One of the cabin crew was slightly injured and the aircraft was ‘severely damaged’.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the German BFU. Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) data was available but Flight Data Recorder (FDR) data was not. It was established that the aircraft had previously arrived in Stuttgart from Hurghada and 100 of the 196 arriving occupants had disembarked with their luggage prior to the reminder departing for Dusseldorf. Since the remaining luggage was all in one rear hold, to maintain the aircraft centre of gravity within Aircraft Flight Manual (AFM) limits would have required that a significant number of the passengers moved to seats further forward. According to the load and trim sheet certified and accepted by the aircraft commander, 42 passengers were seated in the forward bay of the passenger cabin (seat rows 1-15) and the remaining 47 in the rear bay (seat rows 16-33). In fact, all 89 passengers were seated in the rear bay.