The fatal crash of Emirates Boeing 777 in Dubai

A Boeing 777 operated by Emirates was preparing for its scheduled international passenger flight to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
282 passengers and 18 crew members were on board the flight.

The aircraft involved was a Boeing 777-31H. It was equipped with two Rolls-Royce Trent 892 engines and was thirteen years old, having made its first flight on 7 March 2003. It was delivered new to Emirates on 28 March 2003, and had logged more than 58,000 flight hours in 13,000 cycles before the crash.

The Boeing 777 departed from Trivandrum International Airport.

Around an hour before landing the crew completed the approach briefings for runways 12L and 30L. The captain briefed to the Copilot that in case of a go-around, flaps 20 was to be selected and they will climb to 3,000 ft.

The United Arab Emirates National Center of Meteorology and Seismology issued a moderate windshear warning affecting all runways at Dubai Airport, with a validity from 11:40 to 1:00pm.

According to the Captain, prior to this flight, he had experienced similar windshear warnings on ATIS at same airport. Except ATIS there was no additional information from ATC regarding the windshear warning,so he did not believe that the landing would be affected.

ATC vectored flight 521 for approach to runway 12L.

7 min before landing
An Airbus A321 operated by Air India performed a go around. At that time the wind speed was 12.8 kts.

5 min before landing
A Boeing 777 operated by Emirates performed a go around. At that time, the wind speed was 12. 2 kts.

2 min before landing
Another Boeing 777 operated by Emirates performed a deep landing. At that time the speed was 6.6 kts.

The flight crew of 521 were not informed by ATC of the go-arounds and deep landing.

Now flight 521 was cleared to land on runway 12L by ATC which gave the wind speed and direction as 11 kt from 340 degrees.

The Captain disengaged the autopilot and
continued the approach, with the autothrottle engaged.

Because of the reduction in the tailwind component, the airspeed started to increase which resulted in the A/T retarding both thrust levers.

Aircraft passed over the threshold of runway 12L at about 54 ft radio altitude.

As the Aircraft passed 25 ft radio altitude approximately 300 m beyond the threshold, As designed, the A/T transitioned both thrust levers towards the idle position.The thermals updraft coming from the ground was pushing the aircraft upwards.

The Aircraft rolled 3 degrees to the left due to the wind effect and the Captain corrected with right control wheel input of 30 degrees. Then the aircraft banked to right which caused the right main landing gear to contact the runway approximately 1,090 m beyond the threshold.

Thinking that, the aircraft did not touch the runway, The Captain pushed the left TO/GA switch.

Even the captain pushed the to/ga switch, the thrust levers remained at the idle position because the aircraft had already touched the runway.

The aircraft reached at an altitude of 85 feet and started to lose height.

The Captain applied the full thrust and increased the Aircraft pitch to 9.2 degrees in an attempt to regain height but it was too late.

The investigation was done by General Civil Aviation Authority UAE.

According to the investigators the pilots failed to realize the engines of the aircraft remained idle as they tried to take off from a failed landing attempt.

The flight crew reliance on automation and lack of training in flying go-arounds from close to the runway surface ... significantly affected the flight crew performance in a critical flight situation which was different to their experience during their simulated training flights.

They touched down on the runway and then decided that they wanted to Go Around. Here they made one very critical mistake. The crew failed to realize that after the airplane makes contact with the ground, the systems automatically disables the TOGA buttons.