Description

On 11 August 2010, a Douglas DC8-63F being operated by Afghanistan-based operator Kam Air on a non scheduled cargo flight from Manston UK to Sal, Cape Verde Islands failed to get airborne until after the end of departure runway 28 during a daylight take off in normal visibility. The aircraft eventually became airborne and climbed away normally and when ATC advised of the tail strike, the aircraft commander elected to continue the flight as planned and this was achieved without further event. Minor damage to the aircraft was found after flight and there was also damage to an approach light for the reciprocal runway direction.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. It was noted that the aircraft operator carried out both international and domestic passenger and cargo flights. It had recently acquired the incident aircraft and one other of the same type and the incident flight was found to have been the first commercial task for the operator’s new DC-8 fleet. It was established that the aircraft had been chartered to transport a consignment of polo ponies from the UK to Argentina with only a refuelling stop at Sal.

It was found that a load and trim sheet had been prepared by the Flight Engineer which showed a TOW of 335,410 lb. The same person also prepared a takeoff data card which was presented to the commander when he arrived on the aircraft and which showed the (correct) higher TOW of 343,000 lb and take off speeds corresponding to this higher weight. It was noted that no crosscheck of the flight engineer’s calculations or takeoff performance figures had been made by any other crew member. The actual TOW was found to have been 25,700 lb above the maximum (runway limited) takeoff weight.