A Vietnam Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for Hanoi made a faulty take-off from Munich Airport over the weekend that could have resulted in a devastating accident, aviation expert Heinrich Grossbongardt told dpa on Monday.
"This could have resulted in a fireball with hundreds of fatalities if the pilots had not managed to pull the aircraft up," Grossbongardt said. People outside the airport grounds could also have been in danger.
The 787 took off only after passing the end of the southern runway on Saturday afternoon, with video clips showing huge clouds of dust and shaking inside the cabin. According to information from the Aviation Herald platform, at least the brakes on the right side of the aircraft were also jammed before take-off.
The low take-off speed meant that the aircraft's tail struck the ground and was severely damaged. During the subsequent landing on the northern runway, the main landing gear tires were also shredded. According to the airport, the passengers were unharmed and were taken by bus to the terminal building.
The exact sequence of events must now be clarified by Germany's Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation. The flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorder will be used to determine what happened in the cockpit in a process that could take months.
Grossbongardt queried why the crew had not aborted take-off. At a runway length of 4,000 metres, the Munich runway should have provided sufficient safety margin for this, he said.
Grossbongardt, who was Boeing's spokesman up to 2004, said the incident did not provide any reason to question the safety of the Dreamliner series. "The 787 is an absolutely safe commercial aircraft," he said.
Most recently, a Lufthansa jet of the same type tipped onto its nose at Frankfurt Airport after its nose landing gear collapsed while the aircraft was stationary. In that case, the cause was a maintenance error.