LATAM Boeing 777 suffers tail strike during takeoff in Milan

As The Aviation Herald reported, a LATAM jet flying from Italy to Brazil was hit by the tail of the plane during takeoff. This was a rather strange incident.

LATAM 777 returns to Milan after takeoff tail strike

This incident occurred on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, and involves LATAM flight LA8073, which was scheduled to fly from Milan, Italy (MXP), to Sao Paulo, Brazil (GRU). The flight was operated by an 11-year-old Boeing 777-300ER with registration code PT-MUG.

At 13:26 local time, the aircraft took off from runway 35L at Milan Malpensa Airport. However, during the rotation, the aircraft’s tail impacted the runway. The aircraft took off safely and stopped its climb at 5,000 feet. It then entered a holding pattern, climbed to 6,000 feet and then began dumping fuel.

About 75 minutes after its departure, the plane landed again at Milan Malpensa Airport.

Below you can see a video of the takeoff with the rear impact (I’m confused – is that dust or smoke or…?).

Below you can find some pictures of the aftermath of the incident.

The flight was eventually cancelled and a few days later the jet is still grounded in Milan. I imagine it will stay there for a while.

This is an unusual rear-end strike incident

Given the number of flights that are carried out around the world, it is natural that sometimes things can go wrong. Tail strikes do happen, but they are more common during landing than during takeoff. This is because there is much more variability during landing than during takeoff.

During a takeoff, pilots calculate takeoff power and from there it’s usually pretty routine. In this case, conditions seem decent and it’s not like they ran out of runway, so you wonder what was going on here. Granted, the 777-300ER is a pretty long airplane and even on a routine takeoff, there’s a little less than a meter between the tail and the runway during the rotation.

So what happened here? Was the takeoff power simply not calculated correctly, causing the pilots to try to rotate too early? Was there some kind of gust of wind that changed the takeoff power? Doesn’t the 777 have a sensor designed to prevent such incidents?

I’m curious how long this aircraft will remain out of service. Damage from a tail impact can potentially cause significant structural damage depending on the severity. For example, earlier this year I wrote about how an Air France Airbus A350 suffered a tail impact during a go-around maneuver in Toronto.

The plane remained in Toronto for nearly five months before being returned to Paris. Weeks after its return to France, the plane has yet to return to service.