Quote:
Originally Posted by Acey
"I just saw what I think was a US A319 or 320 get airborne, bounce once, then come down again and the nose gear collapse on takeoff on runway 27L, watching from the US lounge in A-West..."
Interesting.
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If that's indeed true, why in the hell did the pilot abort takeoff in the middle of his rotation?
In my mind, you either RTO before V1, or after you're airborne, you go around and land again.
Seems like he the worst possible & most dangerous moment to do that, no?
EDIT: Unless for whatever reason, the plane couldn't get off the ground completely. If the load was unbalanced for instance, could it have gotten a few feet off the ground, then just come back down again?
At that point, you don't want to do what the Lokomotiv pilots in Russia did with that Yak-42, and try and force the plane off the ground. I mean, that case was unbalanced load + pilots holding the brakes, but they were still trying to go all out and get the plane in the air.
If this pilot put the nose up, got a few feet off the runway, but then didn't get a positive climb rate and just came back down again, the Captain has to make a snap decision on what to do, and stick to it. Yeah, he was probably past his V1 speed, which for those who don't know, is the speed at which the Captain has to decide whether to continue the takeoff, or safely abort and come to a stop before the end of the runway. The Vr (rotate) speed, which is when they actually put the nose up, comes right after V1.
So if that was the case, he knew he probably didn't have enough stopping distance. But maybe he thought it was better to potentially skid off the runway going 60kts instead of trying to force the plane up and skid off going 200. Then his nose gear collapsed...unless that eyewitness account is wrong (which they often are), and everything I'm saying is bull####.
US Airways flight skids off runway
