Emirates Flight 407

The scheduled flight departed from Melbourne as planned at 22:30 using runway 16, which was long. The captain ordered the first officer to rotate before the end of the runway, travelling at a speed of . As the aircraft pitched upward, it failed to leave the ground and the tail section struck and continued to scrape along the runway. The captain took over the controls and applied maximum thrust on all four engines by using the takeoff/go-around detent. This meant that an incorrect flex temp was applied, which had resulted in a lower than necessary engine thrust and consequently insufficient acceleration and airspeed. The pilots finished dumping fuel over the bay by 23:27, and they subsequently received a report of smoke in the cabin. They requested an immediate return, which air traffic control granted, and they returned to the airport at 23:36 without further incident. ==Aircraft damage and repair==

Despite having tailstrike protection built into the A340-500, the rear pressure bulkhead and the underlying structure were severely damaged during the take-off roll when the tail struck the runway with considerable force. The aircraft also suffered extensive damage to the bottom of the fuselage as it scraped along the runway, a large surface having been completely stripped off its external sheet. The aircraft was an A340-500 registered A6-ERG. It was delivered to Emirates on November 30, 2004. The aircraft made its first revenue flight after repairs on 1 December 2009 as flight EK424, and remained in service operating short- to medium-haul international flights out of Dubai, until it was withdrawn from service in October 2014. It was stored at Tarbes–Lourdes–Pyrénées Airport. ==Aircrew==

After being interviewed by investigators, the two pilots of the flight returned to Dubai. The captain and the first officer were asked to resign from Emirates upon their arrival in Dubai, and both did so. The captain of Flight 407 had slept for only 6 hours during the 24 hours before the accident, while the first officer had 8 hours of sleep in the same period. ==Investigation==

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) performed the accident investigation. Central to the investigation was how the first officer had come to use the wrong aircraft weight, why that mistake was not picked up before takeoff, and why the flight crew had not realized the acceleration was much slower than expected until nearly entirely exhausting the runway. In October 2011, the ATSB released their findings. They found that human error was the cause, and urged the development of technological aids that would alert pilots to incorrect data entry or insufficient take-off speed. In response to the incident, Emirates reviewed its preflight procedures, mandating the duplication of laptop computers used for preflight planning so as to ensure dual data entry. They are also developing an avionics system for take-off acceleration-monitoring and alerting. Airbus updated its software to detect erroneous data. In October 2011, they announced plans to include a software program to calculate the required runway length. Furthermore, Airbus is developing a monitoring system to compute required acceleration rates and apply a "reasonableness test" to data input and alert the pilot to any potential errors. ==In popular culture==

The events of the incident are documented in a season 2 episode of the TV series Aircrash Confidential, titled "Take-off". ==See also==