B757 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Type 4137
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Smoke / Fire / Fumes / Odor
Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors; Procedure
A few seconds after V1 the cockpit filled with smoke. I called smoke then Captain said continue. Captain [called for] an immediate return and put on his mask. By about 500 feet the Captain had his mask on and I asked him to take controls so I could put my mask on then took controls back. At this point the cockpit really got separated. I noticed a LAV SMOKE EICAS message. I started a right turn for a right downwind while climbing to 1500 feet while managing flight path and speed. Captain performed after takeoff checklist on downwind while doing other stuff. We ran no emergency checklist because there was no time. I performed a visual landing and we were probably airborne no longer than 5 minutes. The Captain did a great job coordinating everything in such a short period of time. Once we had the aircraft stopped on the runway I made the remain seated PA and we evaluated the situation with FAs; fire rescue; and ATC. We concluded there was no fire at this point and performed a normal taxi to gate. At the gate maintenance came on board and immediately indicated they knew what the problem was. They said the engines were borescoped last night and too much of some compound or chemical was put in the engine. This excessive compound/chemical started to burn off just after V1 producing the smoke. If this turns out to be the cause then maintenance needs to update their SOP to include a high power engine run after performing that procedure. This will ensure this will never happen again on a flight full of passengers.
Unfortunately the cockpit really got separated. Communication in the cockpit became difficult. FO speaker was not on; so he couldn't really hear me over the intercom and some communication meant for intercom may have gone out instead over ATC frequency. Luckily we could still see each other so a lot of body language was used. At that point FO was solely concentrating on flying VFR pattern back. FO started a right turn for a right downwind while climbing to 1500 feet while expertly managing flight path and speed. As the engines spooled back after level off the smoke concentration seemed to reduce and the ECIAS LAV SMOKE indication went out. FO expert concentration/performance on flying our return approach to ZZZ allowed me to turn my concentration on the other 2 priorities; namely talking to ATC and trying to access situation in cabin from the FAs. I started getting a cascade of chimes from all FA stations in the back. When I had time to pick up interphone to assess cabin situation everyone was trying to talk to me and each other at the same [time]. It was total confusion. Communication with cabin crew was impossible while airborne I was not able to garner any useful information from them until after I got on the ground and brought the plane to a stop. There should really be a procedural protocol where only LEAD FA [assess] cabin situation and then only LEAD FA calls the cockpit with information; otherwise there is great potential for confusion. I normally brief LEAD FA of this preference; but that day for some odd reason I didn't.
B757 flight crew reported smoke in the cockpit during takeoff. Oxygen masks were donned and the flight returned to the departure airport.