A PASSENGER plane landing at Glasgow Airport was damaged in a tailstrike incident last summer, it has emerged.
Air accident investigators were called in after an eyewitness reported seeing "sparks" coming from the aircraft as it landed, with a subsequent inspection revealing "scrape marks" on the underside of the fuselage.
A scrape mark, but no debris, was also discovered on the runway.
The tailstrike occurred during a routine landing of a British Airways Airbus A321 en route from Heathrow to Glasgow with 200 passengers and seven crew on board on July 19 2015.
No one was injured but investigators from the AAIB were automatically notified.
Although tailstrike incidents are rarely dangerous in themselves, the aircraft must be thoroughly inspected and repairs carried out if needed.
Inadequate inspections and improper repairs to damaged airframes after a tailstrike have been known to cause catastrophic structural failure long after the tailstrike incident because the weakened aircraft is less able to withstand the pressurisation associated with flying.
In 1985, a Japan Airlines passenger flight from Tokyo to Osaka suffered an explosive decompression 12 minutes after take-off, killing 520 people on board. The crash was later blamed on a faulty repair performed after a tailstrike incident during a landing seven years earlier.
The longer fuselage design on Airbus A321's has made these planes more prone to tailstrikes. However, the incidence remains rare at around 13-14 events per million landings worldwide.
The AAIB said that it was "difficult to pinpoint a precise reason why this tailstrike occurred" at Glasgow Airport, but concluded that the "most significant contributor" was a mistake by the co-pilot after touchdown which caused the pitch to increase.
The AAIB said BA was now providing more training to its pilots on the "specific differences" of A321 design, and is also considering whether to introduce an experience restriction for co-pilots performing landings using the A321.
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