Rejected Takeoff or "Go & Touch"?

[FL500]

Came across this story and was surprised that it didn't show up on the forum? I was wondering what people would do if faced with this situation? Look forward to reading everyone's' posts.

FlySafe.

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=446fcf6f&opt=0

[glorifiedtaxidriver]

Crew did the right thing. 12000 feet of runway, put her down straight ahead. Now if we could only get them to use the same common sense with their radio calls...

[Cat Driver]

Good airmanship is getting your airplane safely stopped on the ground as soon as safely posible after a mechanical problem in recognized.

SOP's do not superceed good airmanship and good decision making, this crew had a problem and they had plenty of room to land straight ahead so why would they want to be solving this in the air?

[Doc]

They totally did the right thing. Blind adherence to SOP's is a sign of a definite lack of thought. You're airborne with bags of runway ahead, and something goes for a dump....LAND the puppy and sort it out on the ground. If you don't know when to toss the SOP's, you shouldn't be flying around in a Dash8.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I would argue they did follow SOP's. Continue after V1 isn't an absolute under any SOP's I have seen, it will always be dependent on the Captain using his/her judgement that the aircraft will actually fly if the takeoff is continued. If the aircraft is only a few feet in the air and you are getting a stick shaker I would argue you do not know that it is a false indication or a real indication of high AOA, like a contaminated wing, structural failure etc. So with thousands of feet of runway ahead and the aircraft still in control I think it would be obvious that flying it back on to the runway would be the best course of action and in accordance with the SOP's

[Doc]

This will not sit well with many. I find the blind adherence to SOP's to be one of the most frightening things in the industry.
I remember a certain DC8, that (I believe) had a spoiler activate early while landing in Toronto. Hit the runway like a piano! Now, the SOP called for a go around. That's what the crew did. They're all dead now. I was to play hockey that night in the Woodbridge Arena. It became a morgue.
Nobody had the presence of mind to say...."Whoa there, horse....we is on the runway....lets stay here..."
I'm sure there are other examples.
I hear pilots say "SOP SOP SOP" Usually, SOP's work. Most of the time, SOP's work.....but SOP's can also kill you....they might well have been disastrous to our subject Dash 8 crew......thankfully, we'll never know. And, that's a good thing.

[pile_it]

Off topic, but as far as I know, on the dash's the only stall warning systems are the stick shaker and stick pusher (300). Can anyone enlighten me as to this "stall light" they're talking about? Is it only on a certain mod, or are they just talking about a #1 STALL SYS FAIL caution light?

[whipline]

I'm generally a follow the SOP's type, fix it in the air. In this case with roughly 2 miles of pavement in front of them I would have done the same thing.

[Big Pistons Forever]

This will not sit well with many. I find the blind adherence to SOP's to be one of the most frightening things in the industry.
I remember a certain DC8, that (I believe) had a spoiler activate early while landing in Toronto. Hit the runway like a piano! Now, the SOP called for a go around. That's what the crew did. They're all dead now. I was to play hockey that night in the Woodbridge Arena. It became a morgue.
Nobody had the presence of mind to say...."Whoa there, horse....we is on the runway....lets stay here..."
I'm sure there are other examples.
I hear pilots say "SOP SOP SOP" Usually, SOP's work. Most of the time, SOP's work.....but SOP's can also kill you....they might well have been disastrous to our subject Dash 8 crew......thankfully, we'll never know. And, that's a good thing.

Interesting that you use the Air Canada DC8 crash as an example as it was caused by a failure to follow the spoiler SOP's. The flight crew decided they did not like the AC spoiler arm SOP and decided to do their own thing. The result was an inadvertent spoiler activation in flight which resulted in such a hard touchdown that an engine separated from the wing, followed by a massive bounce back into the air. Go around or not the airplane was from that moment; doomed. This is IMO a classic example of what happens when there is no SOP discipline. The "Good Idea" club takes over and all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas start to manifest themselves. The bottom line is that the large aircraft accident rate fell significantly when all operators started to get serious about having good SOP's, training them in the Sim and the aircraft, and making sure that the crew were following them. There is IMO a lesson here for the 703/704 operators.

[Sulako]

Some guys I know rejected a t/o in a Hawker a while back after they got airborne - the controls felt wonky and they had an 11,000' runway so it ended up fine. I certainly wouldn't want to go airborne if the controls are screwed up and I don't have to be in the air.

Our normal SOP's are "Below 70 knots we reject for anything strange at all, between 70 and V1 we reject for engine fire, failure, t/r deployment, loss of directional control or anything that lights up our Master Caution. Anything bad above V1 we will continue the takeoff and come back around and land". However, on a long runway I usually brief "We will reject for anything weird up to V1, and If we have runway left and something really bad happens, we will land on the remaining runway". At least that way the other guy knows it's a possibility.

FWIW, The guys at Flightsafety say as long as I brief the other guy in advance, it's cool.

[Doc]

and If we have runway left and something really bad happens, we will land on the remaining runway". At least that way the other guy knows it's a possibility.

A good example of a briefed deviation from SOP's. The ticket with "tossing" the SOP's is to brief for it. Thanks for that.

[Doc]

Go around or not the airplane was from that moment; doomed. This is IMO a classic example of what happens when there is no SOP discipline. The "Good Idea" club takes over and all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas start to manifest themselves. The bottom line is that the large aircraft accident rate fell significantly when all operators started to get serious about having good SOP's, training them in the Sim and the aircraft, and making sure that the crew were following them. There is IMO a lesson here for the 703/704 operators.

No doubt about it. The airplane was "doomed".....but the passengers and crew were not "doomed" until the ill advised decision to become airborne again was acted upon.

[Canoehead]

Off topic, but as far as I know, on the dash's the only stall warning systems are the stick shaker and stick pusher (300). Can anyone enlighten me as to this "stall light" they're talking about? Is it only on a certain mod, or are they just talking about a #1 STALL SYS FAIL caution light?

You're correct- it would be a Stall Sys Fail Caution light...

[Big Pistons Forever]

Go around or not the airplane was from that moment; doomed. This is IMO a classic example of what happens when there is no SOP discipline. The "Good Idea" club takes over and all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas start to manifest themselves. The bottom line is that the large aircraft accident rate fell significantly when all operators started to get serious about having good SOP's, training them in the Sim and the aircraft, and making sure that the crew were following them. There is IMO a lesson here for the 703/704 operators.

No doubt about it. The airplane was "doomed".....but the passengers and crew were not "doomed" until the ill advised decision to become airborne again was acted upon.

I disagree. At the moment the go around was initiated the aircraft was over 50 feet in the air, having shed an engine and sustained significant airframe damage and at a very low airspeed. This airplane was going to crash, the only question was where. I suppose more people might have lived if it crashed on the runway, or maybe not as the aircraft may have cartwheeled. But the fact remains if the crew had followed the Air Canada SOP for spoiler use this accident would not have happened. It seems perverse to use this crash as an example of where the crew should have abandoned SOP's in the case of not going around when failure to follow a simple SOP caused the catastrophic circumstances in the first place.

[Doc]

BPF, you're correct. I was under the impression the aircraft was "on" the ground when they went around. Very ugly indeed. I'll defer to your obviously more informed account of the events.
Cheers

[KAG]

What can happen when you reject when you should have continued.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SweTB8I9V2E

Depends on the plane, runway length, and so on. On the NG, at V1 were going.
Great job by the Perimeter crew to use their experience to make a non event out of what could have been a tragety.

[Doc]

Any time the airplane is safely on the ground, with no damage and no injuries, you did the "right" thing, regardless of what you were trained to do. That really is the bottom line here.

[Cat Driver]

Doc, common sense and good decision making is not exactly the mindset of a lot of the people here on Avcanada.

Remember that story I related in the training forum about a take off reject I did in a water bomber some decades ago?

Remember the written abuse I was subjected to because I had not followed the so called " SOP's "

At least I learned a lesson on that one.

I don't take part in the flight training discussions anymore because of the mindset of that group.

Back to this topic...good job done by the crew on that dash 8.

[KAG]

No what I'm saying is you cant make a blanket statement that applies to all types and situations concerning disregarding SOP's, Especially in bigger, heavier machines.
In THIS case (perimeter) it worked. Throw in a Jet, a slight delayed reaction at V1, and the outcome may have been different. To argue that point and frankly your a test pilot, which none on here are, nor should be with people on board.
Know your plane, its performance, and your surroundings. Blindly following any rule and your bound to have problems at some point. Haphazardly Disregarding SOP's will also.

For the record, I would have done exactly what the Perimeter crew did, in a Dash.

[Gannet167]

I'll take the bait and play devil's advocate here too. V1 is V1. Things are happening too fast to do an analysis of the 1000 things involved and try to come to a decision at V1. That's why we do the math, get in the charts, and come up with a V1 and memorize reject items before engines are even turning. This is pre-decided upon and briefed so that there is no confusion. Like the video posted above shows, rejecting above V1 often has catastrophic consequences. If V1 is just a suggestion, then it ought to be briefed that way - we'll hit 130 kts, talk about it, if it's for these items, we'll feel it out and see if we feel like continuing the takeoff or like rejecting/aborting and/or landing straight ahead.

Now, in this case they had a long runway that it seems wasn't contaminated and in the relatively slow flying straight wing propeller airplane they were in, likely could have taken off, done 3 touch and goes, and still make it airborne on the fourth rotation to climb safely away. I'm sure the TOFL of a Dash 8 leaves a lot of room. In this case, it worked.

However, there are Reject Items established by the manufacturer and the regulators that are the go/no-go items. I don't fly a Dash-8 but I really doubt that a stall protection system malfunction is a reject item. Particularly a high speed reject item. You might elect to reject at 30 kts if a generator kicks off, but certainly at higher speeds it's reject items ONLY. Not only were these guys above V1, they were actually Airborne! A stall protect system on most Bombardier products is a vane hooked up to a transducer. If they get stuck in a full up or down position or fail you get a few warnings and flashing lights, maybe the shaker. But if you're at the correct airspeed and haven't over-rotated, you are not stalled. This should have been clearly obvious to the crew that they were safely flying. If in doubt, they could have referenced the other SPS vane indicator to see it's in the normal position and AOA is not approaching critical angle. I've had the SPS flash a bunch of malfunction warnings around V1 and we continued, as per our brief - as this is not a reject item.

It's been determined that it's safer to go flying above V1, even if the engine is on fire. If you're airborne, you're obviously well above V1. A lousy SPS shaker is not a reason to reject. It's annoying for sure, it's noisy and there would be some confusion in the cockpit. But this is where a well trained crew and solid procedures should have allowed them to realize what was going on and continue with getting airborne, safely come around and land. The yellow page checklist, which likely they can start actioning at 1500 AGL likely would have directed them to pull the SPS circuit breaker to get rid of the annoying warnings.

Now like I said, in this case it worked. But I highly doubt that the pilot did the math to know how much TOFL he needed, how much runway was remaining, whether he was in landing config (no idea if it's the same as takeoff config but certainly if different then different Vref speeds would come into play) deal with the plane being in a different energy state, on a different approach profile, and in the split second figured that he was safer to land with whatever amount of runway was left. I bet he thought the wing was really stalling and wanted to put the plane down before (in his mind) it stalled. Would he, in this split second decision done the same thing if the runway was 4000' ? I wonder. Yep, they were lucky.

Try this in anything higher performance and even with 12,000' you'll be off in the weeds. That's why we have V1, it's pre-decided to continue the takeoff because it actually is safer. Even if you're still on the ground, the risk factors of a high speed reject are immense. Brakes catch on fire, tires blow, directional control can become difficult and in higher performance aircraft you simply wont stop before the end of the pavement in many cases.

It's easy to Monday morning quarterback events. But in my opinion, the crew ought to have realized that the plane was flying properly (known power settings, proper rate of rotation to a proper pitch, correct takeoff config) and this was a system malfunction that had essentially no risk to flight safety (as long as they didn't start to approach stall speed). They were simply lucky that they had a long runway in front of them that when they flinched and put the plane back on the ground, got lucky and didn't go off the end. Lucky. If they had climbed up to MSA, ran the checklist and come around to land it would have been much safer situation overall as there would have been far fewer chances for something to go very wrong. If they'd bounced the landing, departed the end or side of the runway etc. etc. we'd all be saying "yep, that's why you don't reject above V1" but since it worked, they're considered by some to be smart. In reality, lucky.

[Cat Driver]

Yep, they were lucky.

Really?

What do you think Colonel Sanders, is it just luck when a pilot is able to lift off in an airplane and then land straight ahead?

I gotta quit reading this stuff before I get depressed to the point it becomes a problem.

[Doc]

Yep, they were lucky.

Really?

What do you think Colonel Sanders, is it just luck when a pilot is able to lift off in an airplane and then land straight ahead?

I gotta quit reading this stuff before I get depressed to the point it becomes a problem.

I'm with you. An intelligent decision on this site is always debated to death, and second guessed. Or called "luck" if nobody dies when a pilot takes an intelligent route, if slightly left or right of centre. For the most part, the "cowboy trail" is not being followed on a regular basis, and for the most part, this is a good thing. It's a good thing some of us still wear the "spurs", and know when to use them?
A good example of using the "spurs" at the right time happened a few years back in YRL. A C46 had an R2800 go south on the takeoff roll. Rather than take a fully loaded (with gasoline as I hear it) C46 off the ground on one, the captain opted to skid off the end of the runway and make a hasty retread into the forest. Totally the right decision! Based on the fact that he lived to fly another day. I, for one, have a very hard time second guessing success.

[iflyforpie]

If the weather had been a little worse, the runway a little slipperier, the wind a little less favourable, and the reaction a little later, it would be North Bay all over again and I am sure that the same people who are giving kudos to the crew now for deviating from SOPs would be tearing into them 'Dash 8 overrunning a two mile long runway just because of a faulty instrument blah blah blah' <beating chest> ad nauseam.

I don't disagree with what they did, and V1 only applies to balanced field and engine failure scenarios. I am just wondering what information they had to make that decision (like knowing, not guessing how much runway was left).

[Cat Driver]

Generally you come across as quite a bright person Ifly........so I'll give you a little hint on this one.

It was in Winnipeg at their home base and they were flying an airplane they were familiar with so my guess is they " knew " how much runway was ahead of them, flying is not black magic it is operating a piece of machinery and the same common sense rules can be used as you would driving a truck.

[BEFAN5]

I hope they got a landing clearance....

Great work by the crew. Those planes fly into short strips (3000feet) every day and were probably airborne, down, and stopped before hitting the halfway point on that runway. I like reading stories about a crew who used their own experience and knowledge to get their plane down safely. SOP's are written from the comfort of an office and are by no means developed to solve every issue.