What happened
NTSB summary, verbatimThe crew of the Part 121 scheduled passenger flight reported that the landing approach at the destination was stable. The first officer, who was the pilot flying, stated that the airplane was slightly high and fast when he began the landing flare and he pushed the nose down to correct. He then determined that he had overcorrected and began to recover by pulling the control column aft when the airplane landed firmly on the main landing gear and the aft fuselage impacted the runway. Postflight inspection revealed an area of abrasion damage to the aft fuselage and the underlying stringers and frames and damage to the aft pressure bulkhead.
Photographs
1the aircraft, and what the investigators foundProbable cause
the Board's determinationthe first officer's failure to attain a proper landing flare, which resulted in a tail strike.
Occurrence sequence
1 stepsNTSB coding · CICTT taxonomy- 1 · Landing-flare/touchdownTailstrikedefining event
Findings
1 causal · 0 contributing- CAUSEPersonnel issues › Action/decision › Action › Incorrect action sequence — Copilot
Sequence of events
9 timed eventsfrom the FDR factual report · claude-sonnet-5- 20:24:10 EDTDeparturep.3the aircraft departed
- 20:53 EDTDescentp.3the aircraft began a descent out of flight level 270
- 21:03 EDTDescentp.3the aircraft began a descent out of flight level 230, with some intermediate, short duration level offs, including at 10,000 feet at about 21:08 EDT
- 21:17:46 EDTApproachp.3the computed airspeed was 140 knots, as the aircraft descended through 374 feet radio altitude
- 21:18:04 EDTApproachp.3the pitch began to increase, as the radio altitude decreased through 196 feet, and the computed airspeed began to decrease out of 141 knots
- 21:18:16 EDTTouchdownp.3the weight on wheels transitioned to ground, as the pitch angle increased through 8.1 degrees nose up, the computed airspeed fluctuated at about 120 knots, and the vertical g peaked at +1.66 g
- 21:18:18 EDTTouchdownp.3with weight on wheels still indicating ground, the pitch reached a maximum up angle of 11.4 degrees, the computed airspeed decreased through 121.5 knots, and the vertical g fluctuated between +1.5 and +0.7 g
- 21:18:23 EDTRolloutp.3the pitch decreased to a steady value of about 0.2 degrees nose up
- 21:18:52 EDTRolloutp.3the computed airspeed began to read a non-computed value (less than 40 knots)
NTSB analysis
from the final reportThe crew of the Part 121 scheduled passenger flight reported that the landing approach at the destination was stable. The first officer, who was the pilot flying, stated that the airplane was slightly high and fast when he began the landing flare and he pushed the nose down to correct. He then determined that he had overcorrected and began to recover by pulling the control column aft when the airplane landed firmly on the main landing gear and the aft fuselage impacted the runway. Postflight inspection revealed an area of abrasion damage to the aft fuselage and the underlying stringers and frames and damage to the aft pressure bulkhead.