A British Airways plane on flight BA431 appeared to strike its tail on the runway twice while trying to land at Heathrow Airport on Thursday. The pilots aborted the landing and carried out a go-around before bringing the aircraft in safely on a second attempt.
The flight had come from Amsterdam, and the sequence is now being examined by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch. For passengers and crew, the unsettling part was that the aircraft ended the day on the ground without a problem, even though the landing attempt itself appeared to involve a tail strike on the runway.
That is the part investigators will have to sort out. A plane can scrape its tail without immediately making the landing unsafe, but it can also pass over the runway with only the appearance of contact depending on angle, speed and camera view. Either way, the decision to abandon the first approach and go around suggests the pilots judged the landing was not right and chose the safer option.
British Airways said it was assisting the Air Accidents Investigation Branch with its investigation and was legally unable to comment further at this stage. The airline has not said whether the apparent tail strikes caused damage or injuries, and that absence matters as much as the incident itself. The plane is down safely; the unanswered question is what, if anything, happened underneath it on the runway.
