What happened
On 6 May 2022, a Singapore Airlines Boeing B737-800, registration 9V-MGL, departed Kathmandu Airport, Nepal, for a scheduled flight to Singapore. During the takeoff roll, the pilot flying executed a rotation that resulted in a tail strike. The pilot monitoring felt a physical thud and heard reports from cabin crew regarding a scraping sound, though the cockpit was not equipped with a tail strike warning system to provide immediate cockpit indication.
Because the departure route required climbing over high terrain, the crew prioritized reaching the Minimum Safe Altitude (MSA) of 14,400 feet before addressing the situation. Once the aircraft reached 15,000 feet, the crew began reviewing the Tail Strike Non-Normal Checklist (NNC). To avoid triggering a cabin altitude warning (CAW) while still above 10,000 feet, the crew attempted to manually depressurize the aircraft by opening the outflow valve (OFV) during a controlled descent.
During this process, the crew experienced a cabin altitude excursion that triggered the CAW. The pilot monitoring manually deployed passenger oxygen masks without informing the pilot flying. The aircraft eventually descended to 5,000 feet, where the crew stabilized the cabin and requested clearance to divert. The flight proceeded to Kolkata, India, where the aircraft performed an overweight landing. A subsequent inspection confirmed that while the tailskid assembly's skid shoe had contacted the runway, there was no structural damage to the aft fuselage.