An Air France jet suffered a tail strike during a go around in Toronto. The more details that emerge regarding what happened, the more confusing this incident becomes…
In this post:
Air France A350 has tail strike during go around
This incident happened on Sunday, January 21, 2024, and involves Air France flight AF356 from Paris (CDG) to Toronto (YYZ). The flight was operated by a nearly three-year-old Airbus A350-900 with the registration code F-HTYH.
The aircraft was attempting to land on runway 24L at 4:34PM, though the pilots decided to perform a go around, which is supposed to be a standard (and safe) procedure. However, something obviously went very wrong there, because the jet suffered a tail strike during this maneuver.
A plane spotter even captured the exact moment of the tail strike, where you can see sparks coming from near the tail.
Not only that, but there’s video from inside the cabin, where you can hear the tail strike.
VASAviation has a recreation of the incident, showing both the A350’s position, as well as the air traffic control audio.
Following the go around, the plane made a pattern around the airport, and ended up landing on the same runway at 4:49PM. Fortunately there were no injuries.
As you’d expect, the return flight to Paris was canceled, given the damage to the aircraft. Days later, the Airbus A350 remains on the ground in Toronto. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes for this aircraft to return to service.
What caused this Air France A350 tail strike incident?
While tail strikes are problematic, they aren’t uncommon, and they can happen either during takeoff or landing. While it’ll take some work to get this plane fixed, hopefully there’s no major structural damage that make this much worse (though that is a possibility).
So, what happened here?
- The pilot told the air traffic controller that the decision was made to perform a go around due to a “long landing,” which is when there’s not enough room to stop anymore (or it’s beyond the company’s operating policies)
- Based on the video footage from inside the cabin where you can see the runway markers, it appears that the aircraft landed at around the 600 meter mark, and the runway is 2,956 meters long
- Multiple people who claim to have been passengers onboard state that the pilot announced over the PA that the go around was due to something on the runway, though the jet that landed prior to the Air France A350 had vacated the runway, so it wasn’t that plane
- It’s interesting how the tail strike marks are off-center, suggesting that the plane was banking to some degree while it was performing a go around, which is an additional detail that’s confusing
- What I really can’t wrap my head around (based on the above video) is how the aircraft touches down, then the pilots seem to pull the nose up, and then the pilots seem to apply power, which doesn’t seem like the right order in which to do things
- I’m curious if the pilots even realized they had a tail strike; they seem a bit distracted in their communication following the go around, and also don’t advise the air traffic controllers of the tail strike
I’m sure that an investigation will be performed into why this happened, to prevent a similar occurrence in the future. It’ll be interesting to see what that uncovers…
Bottom line
An Air France Airbus A350 suffered a tail strike during a go around in Toronto on Sunday. While go arounds are common, they shouldn’t result in tail strikes. Fortunately no one was injured, and the plane was able to land safely around 15 minutes later. Now the questions are how long it’ll take to fix this plane, and what the cause of this was.
What do you make of this Air France Airbus A350 incident?
They also had the 777-300 landing incident in CDG in 2022, caused my dual inputs by captain and FO.
https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/opposing-dual-inputs-confused-air-france-777-pilots-during-paris-go-around/156524.article
If they didn’t report the tail strike to ATC isn’t that irresponsible given that it could have left debris on the runway? Or am I being unfair?
Today we get the collective 'wisdom' of @ConcordeFetus AND @Tim Dunce....wooh hooo! You go, gurls!
Why does AF have such a poor safety record? The FAA should consider banning AF from flying into the US.
THIS!
Why is this not more concerning to N. AMER partner DL as well.
"Based on the pictures, this seems like one of the worse ..."
Worst. Think Best/Worst or Better/Worse.
What a rough year for a350-900 as we already see 2 accidents (and one is complete hull-loss) regarding a350-900 in the first month of the year.
And the jury is still out on this one! If they cracked the rear-pressure bulkhead, then its very possible that this aircraft could be written off as well, because that repair is hugely expensive. It also comes with heavy scrutiny, due to the China Airlines disaster in 2002.
I suspect the air frame's youth (and therefore high value compared to cost) will save it, but you never know. Didn't Air France scrap a almost-new Concorde for this reason?
Is the post incorrectly mentioned A350-800? It is A350-900, specifically A350-941.
Air France continues to be a total death trap. What makes these pilots so incompetent?
Says the armchair aviation expert who knows nothing
Yeahhhh, you should probably sit this one out.
AF's safety culture definitely comes into question. I'd defy anyone here to name a major Western carrier with more mass fatalities, hull losses, and near misses, in recent times (say, since the turn of the century) than AF.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/29/world/europe/air-france-safety.html
Your safety odds are as good on AF as on JAL, 2x better than Swiss or Iberia, and 3x better than China Airlines or or Thai, and 6x better than Royal Jordanian. https://airlinelist.com/
Room for improvement to be sure, it's not at the same level as the US airlines, but better than many other non-US mainline airlines.
Eh, no. That site is complete bunk.
It factors subsidiaries, codeshare flights, and "environmental impact," into its "safety ratings," which it then churns out with inconsistent comparisons based on the ratio between date of founding and date of incident.
That's by no...
Eh, no. That site is complete bunk.
It factors subsidiaries, codeshare flights, and "environmental impact," into its "safety ratings," which it then churns out with inconsistent comparisons based on the ratio between date of founding and date of incident.
That's by no means an accurate method to compare transport category safety.
That is crap. Iberia’s last deathly crash happened in 1985. As a matter of fact in the last 50 years only two deadly accidents have occurred (1983, 1985) and the one in 1983 was caused by ATC (Runway incursion, foggy weather). How is that 2x safer that crashing a fully loaded A330 into the Atlantic Ocean in the 21st century? And then blame ice? LOL
Air France is the only major European airline to have had not only one but two major deadly crashes in the 21st century. And in both cases both the investigation and judicial proceedings have been far from transparent.
The first one (Concorde) was due to debris from Continental.
Although other non-fatal accidents are bad at Air France.
Lets not forget the accident on august 2005, when AF358, an A340-300 overshot the runway also at Toronto Pearson, they changed the flight number after to...AF356!
With Air France even the plane itself goes on strike
AF is still going for gold. Intent on crashing every type they fly:
AF planes that have crashed or nearly
A320 - crashed
A330 - crashed
A340 - crash-landed and burned down, also at YYZ
A350 - YYZ (Latest)
A380 - Engine blowout over Greenland
747-400 Runway overrun into ocean bay
777 - Nearly flew into mountains twice on an intra-Africa sector
777F - Entered TO weight 100...
AF is still going for gold. Intent on crashing every type they fly:
AF planes that have crashed or nearly
A320 - crashed
A330 - crashed
A340 - crash-landed and burned down, also at YYZ
A350 - YYZ (Latest)
A380 - Engine blowout over Greenland
747-400 Runway overrun into ocean bay
777 - Nearly flew into mountains twice on an intra-Africa sector
777F - Entered TO weight 100 tons underweight. Confusion in the cockpit as the plane wouldn't leave the runway at CDG
Concorde - crashed on Take Off at CDG
MANY. OMG MANY AF accidents and incidents in the somewhat distant past, including:
1970s
747-100 burned down in BOM
1980s
747-200 Rio - overshot runway. Scrapped
747-200 Pakistan (cargo hold explosion)
747 F - crashed and burned in India (Chennai)
Many 777-300 issues out of China.
They crashed a 707 (AF212) in 1969.
There was that 727 (AF422) in Colombia, but I don't really attribute that to them, despite having their flight number, as that was a wet-lease.
Lastly, there's AF8969, where an A300 got shot up to the point of being written off... but again, sort of a stretch, as that was the result of a hijacking; but still part of the "AF Airbus Curse"
The video is damming.
We can't know the reason for the go around; we can't hear the audio, and we can't see out the cockpit window or instruments, so it's not appropriate to pass judgement on what little cues WE have.
HOWEVER... mains touch, power increases, and then pitch increases severely- a tail strike was inevitable by that point.
Then pitch decreases and power fully increases to TOGA.
So, either they...
The video is damming.
We can't know the reason for the go around; we can't hear the audio, and we can't see out the cockpit window or instruments, so it's not appropriate to pass judgement on what little cues WE have.
HOWEVER... mains touch, power increases, and then pitch increases severely- a tail strike was inevitable by that point.
Then pitch decreases and power fully increases to TOGA.
So, either they hit a severe gust (doesn't seem like it from outside the window wind observation), or they've conducted a poor go around, which seems to be an industry trend (Emirates comes to mind most recently, but there have been others).
I’d really like to know why we went around. The tail strike is accessory. How can this be known? The pilot clearly stated that there was something on the runway.
I’ve been on a different flight (Silver Airways) where there was a go-around, and the pilot said it was because something was on the runway and airport ops would clear it while we went around (insinuating debris/foreign object was on the runway).
Thing was, I had a clear view of the runway from my seat for the whole go-around (the ATR didn’t climb too high and it was able to circle pretty tight in...
I’ve been on a different flight (Silver Airways) where there was a go-around, and the pilot said it was because something was on the runway and airport ops would clear it while we went around (insinuating debris/foreign object was on the runway).
Thing was, I had a clear view of the runway from my seat for the whole go-around (the ATR didn’t climb too high and it was able to circle pretty tight in by the airport), and I observed zero activity on or near the runway the whole time we circled, and I didn’t lose sight until we lined up again for final.
All that to say, the ole “something on the runway” statement from the cockpit may be a default neutral excuse to avoid admission of the exercise of less than perfect airmanship.
In this AF rendition, it’s funny how the pilot told the cabin “something on the runway” while he told the tower “long landing.”
Some suspicion that they actually deployed the thrusters first followed by TOGA. Could perhaps account for the long delay and might even explain an unanticipated pitch response from the aircraft. All conjecture.
I was on the plane. The pilot announced after the go around that the runway had been ‘occupied’ if I remember rightly. I was actually watching the front camera on the screen, but I didn’t see anything on the runway…. we were flying directly into the setting sun. The go around was quick and we landed normally a few minutes later…
That video is odd. Seems like a controlled and perfectly routine landing until that point. Seems as if they were fundamentally already there. Why did they go around? Seems such a slow speed as well.
Finally the stuck Russian plane at YYZ will have a friend to hang out with.
It appears the mains were down; not sure why you abort a landing at that point. If there was a runway issue, it should have been known before that point.
It’s not uncommon for the main gear to touchdown when a late go around is initiated. Of course that doesn’t explain the reason for the late go around.