Safety Topics

Abstract

ON completion of an 88 minute transit flight, a Boeing 747–436 was landed at night at Bangkok where the temperature was 29°C. The approach was made at a weight of 254 tonnes with the commander handling, a Vref of 150kt, medium autobrake selection (level three) and a tail wind component of 5kt. After touchdown at 156 kt CAS, the first officer selected partial reverse thrust on all engines but had slight problems engaging reverse thrust on the outboard pair. The thrust reversers on the inboard engines deployed 11 seconds after touchdown; those on the outboard engines deployed 1.7 seconds later. Reverse thrust was modulated during the landing rollout and maintained for a total of 33 seconds. In appreciation of the modest additional stopping distance required by the delayed onset of reverse thrust the commander decided to override the autobrakes and brake manually, leaving the runway at 16kt groundspeed at the last exit point before the runway end. While taxying‐in the crew were alerted by the EICAS to an abnormally hot brake on the number 8 wheel (left body gear, rear inboard wheel). The brake temperature had reached level five on a scale of zero to nine.