A Qatar Airways Boeing 777 barely got off the ground, its belly ramming into light structures at the other end of the runway, during takeoff from Miami International Airport on Sept. 15.
No one was hurt, and the twin-engine jumbo jet continued onto its destination, Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar, a flight of 13 and a half hours. Yet the Federal Aviation Administration said damage to the aircraft was serious enough to be deemed an accident.
Normally, the National Transportation Safety Board scrutinizes airliner accidents involving U.S. airports. But on Friday, it said it will play a secondary role.
“We are participating in the investigation, but we have opted to delegate the investigation to Qatar,” said Eric Weiss, safety board spokesman.
With 265 passengers onboard the jetliner, aviation experts said the accident held potential for full-blown disaster.
After Qatar Flight 778 was instructed to depart from Runway 9-Right, aiming east, the pilots requested to take off at an interection rather than use the full-length of the 13,000-foot strip. That left the 330-ton aircraft with about 8,900 feet of runway.
The plane barely cleared an 8-foot fence and sliced through several 20-foot-tall light structures at the end of the runway at about 8:30 p.m. that evening.
Although those structures are made of lightweight fiberglass and designed to breakaway when hit, the jetliner destroyed the ones it came in contact with, authorities said.
Qatar is a small Middle East nation adjacent to Saudi Arabia, near the United Arab Emirates and on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Officials of Qatar Airways, which has its U.S. headquarters in Washington, D.C., issued a statement saying that damage was observed near the rear cargo door after the plane landed.
“The flight was completed without incident and arrived in Doha on Sept 16. The safety and security of our passengers and crew is our foremost priority and the incident has been reported to the authorities,” the statement said.
Investigators likely will focus on why the pilots opted to take off from a runway intersection rather than use the full runway.
Frank Rush, of Fort Lauderdale, a retired Boeing 767 captain for a major airline, said flight crews usually use every inch of available runway to ensure safety, particularly with long international flights loaded with fuel, luggage and passengers.
“Pilots do make intersection takeoffs to save time,” he said. “But there’s really no reason to do it with a plane of that size.”
Albert Johnston, of Davie, another retired airline captain, said with an aircraft as powerful as a Boeing 777, intersection takeoffs can be made if all the conditions are right, for instance, the plane’s weight, the winds and the temperature.
“The airplane can usually take off in considerably less distance than the maximum length of most runways,” said Johnston, who flew the 777 for 15 years.
He said other factors may have been at play, such as whether the pilots programmed their flight computer properly for the plane’s weight.
“The heavier the aircraft, the higher the speed needed for takeoff,” he said. “If the pilots don’t program the correct engine thrust, the airplane will use more runway before it takes off.”
Arlene Salac, FAA spokeswoman, said Qatar Airways reported what happened to the FAA after the plane arrived in Doha. The FAA’s preliminary report into the accident listed the damage as “substantial.”
