MD-11
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Human-Machine Interface; Time Pressure; Training / Qualification
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Rejected Takeoff; Flight Crew Returned To Gate; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors; Procedure
High speed reject initiated at 140 KTS due to indication of a flap disagreement just prior to V1. Successfully stopped aircraft and cleared runway. Quite a bit of confusion from Ramp Control about our reject and why we wanted to go back to a parking spot vice having Maintenance meet aircraft out on taxiway. Maintenance Control was difficult to reach/communicate with. [I] had to call Station Operations multiple times to get Ramp personnel to respond to aircraft for block-in and a new weight and balance. All of the Load Personnel for this flight had prematurely departed their work locations before the flight was airborne. Line Maintenance responding to the aircraft indicated they knew what had caused our problem before I had debriefed them on what happened. They stated that they had run through a flap check on the aircraft earlier in the evening and had noticed that the left inboard flap was very jerky and out of sync with the other flaps; but that it eventually got to the same position as the other flaps. They felt that the left inboard flap transmitter was failing; but that it was OK for flight. The rejected takeoff provided the evidence that it was not oak for flight. During the reject the ground proximity switch on the nose wheel strut malfunctioned causing the aircraft to revert its systems to an airborne state even though the aircraft never left the ground. This caused a malfunction of the aircraft pressurization system and a failure of the autobrake system. Maintenance was able to remedy the pressurization issue; but they never were able to recover the autobrake system. The left inboard flap transmitter was disconnected and deferred and the autobrake system was deferred. Do not sign off an aircraft as flight worthy if a suspicion or evidence exists that a flight component is malfunctioning or failing.
A MD-11 Captain rejected the takeoff at 140 KTS because of a flap disagree warning and was informed by Maintenance that a flap transmitter malfunctioned. The nose strut squat switch also failed during the reject.