20130307006499A

Dal 1693 was landing rwy 28 Atl and had a major tail strike that caused structural damage to include an eight (8) foot tail scrape with internal damage below the ac skin.

According to the flight crew, the captain was the pilot flying.

· The first officer conducted the exterior preflight noting no discrepancies in sna.

· The flight crew noted that the takeoff from sna was uneventful.

· The flight crew performed a visual approach in Atl to runway 28 with an ILS backup.

· The approach was flown using a vref speed of 129 knots and 25 degrees of flaps.

· Upon touchdown the auto speedbrakes did not activate and the first officer manually deployed the speedbrakes.

· Subsequently, the flight crew noted that the aircraft began to float for 2 to 3 seconds before touching down again.

· The flight taxied to the gate without further incident.

· While preparing the aircraft for the next flight the flight crew was informed by maintenance personnel of damage to the tail section of the aircraft.

Metars

· METAR katl 080152Z 34006KT 10SM clr 08/M02 A3023 rmk AO2 SLP241 T00831017=

· METAR katl 080252Z 33007KT 10SM clr 07/M02 A3022 rmk AO2 SLP240 T00671017 50005=

Investigative actions

· Per the code of federal regulation title 14, part 830.1, this event was reported to the national transportation safety board and is pending classification.

· The aircraft has been placed on quarantine.

· The dfdr/cvr were removed from the aircraft and will be placed on quarantine.

· This event has been identified as a potential flight safety incident/accident.

CMO-27 airworthness inspector jeff michael inspected the aircraft in the hanagar and took pictures of the damage.

Doug palmer, CMO-27 B-757 apm attended the dala flight safety crew debrief on this accident.

This event was accepted into the dala pilot asap and the erc ruled that the pilots would receive one simulator period of training and one each leg of supervised flying.

May 08, 2013

N698DL has been repaired and returned to service.

The captain and first officer have completed the dala erc required training and returned to line flying.

The dal CMO-27 apm and the dal erc have made the recommendation that dala flight operations should review guidance related to manual deployment of the speed-brakes after landing if they do not deploy automatically and revise guidance as needed.

May 08, 2013

The following efcb was posted for the 757/767-300 fleet.

Subject: manual speedbrake deployment

Source: 757/767-300 fleet team

Effective date: 08MAY13 expiration date: 30JUN13 priority bulletin: n

Bulletin text: bulletin-id: MA-76713-0006

Recent tail strikes highlight the need for better pilot awareness of manual

Speedbrake deployment on landing. The 757/767 mdm states the following for

Auto speedbrake inoperative:

.

Caution:deploying speedbrakes manually before nosewheel touchdown may cause

Pronounced nose pitch up.

.

In addition, the 757 qrh auto speedbrake inop procedure states:

Note:nose wheel must be on the ground prior to deploying speedbrakes manually.

.

Be familiar with the guidance in the mdm/qrh. It is important to understand

That manually deploying the speedbrakes will cause a significant pitch up moment

Not experienced when speedbrakes are automatically deployed. ***continued***

.

The automatic system delays deployment of some of the spoiler panels. This is

Not the case if speedbrakes are deployed manually. All panels immediately

Deploy causing an additional pitch up moment.

.

Finally, the above information should be applied to any situation where the

Spoilers do not deploy automatically on landing.

This investigation is closed.