B767 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 146; Flight Crew Total 10010; Flight Crew Type 3057
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Ground Strike - Aircraft
General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors
Landing at ORD on runway 28C we experienced a hard landing which resulted in a tail strike. The approach was being flown by a very experienced First Officer who I have flown with many times. The approach was a stabilized hand flown approach in VMC conditions. There were no indications or factors that foretold that this would be anything other than a normal landing up until the flair. The pitch attitude at touchdown was towards the high side; but not excessive. The rate of descent did not decrease as much as expected by the flair which resulted in a higher than normal rate of descent at touchdown. As the struts compressed; the tailskid made contact with the runway. We only suspected that a tail strike took place because of a comment made by a flight attendant sitting in the aft of the aircraft. That comment caused us to inspect the tailskid pad at the arrival gate and revealed that the pad indicated that it had contacted the runway. The tail strike resulted from a combination of rate of descent; main gear strut charge towards the low side reducing clearance; and pitch attitude. This incident occurred after a flight duty period of 10:26 and a flight time of 8:56; completing a 5 day international pairing. Maintenance; dispatch; and duty manager were all verbally notified and all required reports filed.
During walk around the main struts had about 5 finger width of space and equal on both sides from left main to right main. Approach: FO flying. Starts hand flying around 4;000-5;000 feet intercepts the localizer and flies the vertical profile following the glide slope. Maintains appropriate altitude and airspeed during approach to include flying ATC assigned speed to FAF. Accepted visual with the runway approximately 25 NM east of the field. Setup to fly visual approach backed up with ILS to 28C. By approximately 1;100 feet; gear and flaps 20 down and slowing to final target speed. Final flaps were down prior to 500. Maintained airspeed thru descent to runway.I watched closely as to when he configured and slowed. I noticed in particular the approach was hand flown well. During the last 100 feet my eyes remained outside looking down the runway to try to cage my eyes to the jumpseat site picture when touching down. It seems to me as if we floated slightly longer and the landing was harder than I had anticipated. (Solely based on the smooth hand flying and experience). I thought it was a little strange and just thought we might have had a little wake turbulence from the previous aircraft or a little gust of air upon landing. Reverse thrust applied and braking application normal.After exit from runway I called lead flight attendant to give her a message from the company. I instructed her on a message to give to passengers on taxi in. After she completed message we got a call from aft flight attendant station saying he heard scraping on touchdown. I immediately told the Captain and First Officer. Once getting to the chocks; the First Officer called to be let down to aircraft and went to take a look. I waited after the passengers were deplaned to help the Captain and First Officer. The Captain was on the phone with dispatch and the First Officer was talking to maintenance on the radio. Shortly after they were on the phone with dispatch/ maintenance the Captain told me I could go and would not need to stick around.ILS 28C assigned approximately 5 min prior to approach. Planned and briefed to land 27L. Winds were out of the west around 6-8 KTS. Temperature 16 C. Landed behind 777.
B767 flight crew reports a hard landing and a tail strike with the First Officer flying; after a nine hour flight from Europe.