Vietnam Airlines 787 took off beyond runway end in Munich, interim report finds

A Vietnam Airlines Boeing 787 departing Munich in August lifted off only after the end of the runway, according to an interim report from Germany's federal aircraft accident investigation body, the BFU, published on 28 September. The report notes the aircraft braked several times during its take-off roll, and that its speed held at roughly 168 knots, about 311 kilometres per hour, for 18 seconds, dropping slightly at times.

The Vereinigung Cockpit, the German cockpit crew union, responded to the interim findings the next day. Sebastian Kloth, who leads the union's accident analysis and prevention working group, said the report points to anomalies but does not yet explain how they arose. The key question, he said, is what triggered the braking, and technical factors, human factors, or a combination of the two could be involved. Assigning a definitive cause at present would be speculation.

Kloth added that it is not known whether a technical issue was behind the event, whether the braking was unintentional, or whether several factors interacted. Why the aircraft did not keep accelerating as expected over those 18 seconds also remains to be established.

"18 seconds are a considerable span of time during a take-off run," Kloth said. The union needs to understand what happened technically in that phase, what information the crew had, and how the situation was perceived in the cockpit.