On March 31, 2012, a JAL Boeing 777-200ER (registration JA701J) experienced a tail strike at Haneda Airport RWY34L while performing a Go Around after landing. On the 18th of this month, Japan’s Transport Safety Commission released the <a href=http://jtsb.mlit.go.jp/jtsb/aircraft/detail.php?id=2039>Investigation Report, and after reading it, I found it to be quite valuable.

The sequence of the accident was as follows: The Pilot Flying (PF) was the 29-year-old First Officer, and the 42-year-old Captain was the Pilot Monitoring (PM). Upon landing, the aircraft was slightly tilted to the right; the right main landing gear touched down first, followed by the left main landing gear, with the shock absorbers reaching maximum compression. The Captain felt the aircraft bounce and decided to go around (though it did not actually bounce), issuing the “go around” command three times in succession. At this point, the First Officer had already deployed the thrust reversers, and the spoilers had automatically deployed; however, the Captain was focused on external observations and did not notice this. The First Officer intended to advance the thrust levers to TOGA, but because the reversers were in the interlock state (interlock condition), the thrust could not be changed. The Captain noticed the First Officer was not executing the go around correctly and initiated a takeover, stating “I have control,” and pushed to TOGA, but similarly, it was ineffective due to the interlock. The Captain looked at the thrust levers, noticed the interlock, stowed the reversers, and continued the go around. During the above stages, the Captain pulled back on the yoke to raise the nose, but due to the state of the reversers and spoilers, the aircraft’s Attitude reached 10.2 degrees, resulting in a tail strike. Subsequently, the aircraft was flown by the Captain during the go around and landed normally. According to the post-landing inspection, there was an 11-meter long, 40-centimeter wide scratch on the lower rear exterior of the fuselage, along with cracks, holes, and deformation.

The report concluded that during the tail strike, the division of responsibilities between the PM and PF was unclear, the pre-flight briefing on the takeover procedure was insufficient, and the PM (Captain) did not adequately monitor the flight status. Additionally, the Captain’s decision to continue the go around despite recognizing that the thrust reversers had been deployed was incorrect.

The report is 42 pages long and contains many photographs and charts. If you are interested, please visit the Transport Safety Commission directly to view it.

Updated on December 29, 2014

Today, I accidentally discovered that my friend SK was actually on this flight that very day. According to his recollection, the passengers did not feel anything abnormal, and there was no in-flight announcement after the go around. He only found out about the incident through the news after returning home in the evening.