Description

On 14 April 2012, the crew of a Boeing 737-300 being operated by Titan Airways on a passenger flight from Chambery to London Gatwick found that the aircraft did not become airborne from runway 36 at Chambery following rotation at the calculated speed and when it eventually did, a tailscrape occurred.

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the UK AAIB. Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) data had been overwritten but Flight Data Recorder (FDR) data was successfully downloaded and QAR data was also available.

It was found that damage to the aircraft had been confined to a 1.9 metre long “deep longitudinal scoring of the rear fuselage skin” within the pressurised section of the fuselage, beneath the aft end of the rear baggage hold. It was found that “this damage created a small leak path for pressurised cabin air to escape to atmosphere, although the rate of leakage was small and insufficient to affect cabin pressurisation during the (subsequent) flight.” It was noted that in the 737-300 variant, this area is not protected by a ‘tail bumper’.