B767 Flight Crew experiences flap overspeed during busy departure with abnormal flap setting.
Synopsis
B767 Flight Crew experiences flap overspeed during busy departure with abnormal flap setting.
Narrative
This event concerned a flap limit exceedence on departure. The take off was a flaps five departure max power; normal noise abatement takeoff. The flaps five limit speed was exceeded on takeoff. I will describe the threats that we faced as a crew during this event and the mitigating tools I should have used to have avoided this situation. The airfield was going to close for us at twenty minutes before the hour. We had added pressure to get out of the blocks to avoid a multi hour delay while the airfield was closed. I thought I had sufficiently slowed things down; did a pre-brief in the blocks and one before takeoff. Had the usual problems with fuel loader; ground crew having to partially rebuild a pallet etc. Pushed before deadline and was able to taxi for takeoff. 1. The taxi out route was very short and the takeoff clearance came quickly. There were numerous aircraft trying to takeoff before the the airport closed. ATC was trying to expedite things. I should have slowed things down even more.2. We did a flaps five takeoff due to weight. I briefed the flaps five; talked about making sure we set them properly; rotation rate etc. Looking back I didn't emphasize the clean up which on the surface seems like no big deal but can be considering we rarely do them. 3. We planned on a normal noise abatement takeoff because of a low altitude restriction on the SID and a requirement to accelerate quickly after takeoff. 4. There was a quick hand off to departure with a turn direct to a fix; accelerate to high speed due to the airplanes behind us trying to get off before the airport closed; and a new altitude. I called for VNAV and flaps 1 at the appropriate speed. The First Officer was quite busy; head down complying with the controller's instructions. I thought about asking for the autopilot but unfortunately decided not to. If I had; the situation could have been avoided. I should have realized the First Officer was task saturated and I would have had the big picture with the automation in use. I noticed the flashing pointer approaching the small diamond on the ADI. I looked over and the flaps were still at five. I pulled the nose up and exceeded the limit by ten knots. The airplane was cleaned up and the flight was uneventful to destination.
Second reporter narrative
Normal pre-departure except we were very rushed in order to beat the airport closure. I felt the workload was normal. Pre-departure Pilot Flying(PF) made a brief mention about the 250kt restriction at the first fix approximately 5 miles from airport. I felt the restriction would be a non-event since the restriction was programmed in the FMC. Normal Flaps 5 departure. PF was hand flying with Flight Director and Auto Throttle engaged. At hand-off with Departure; we were given a fix to navigate directly to and told to accelerate quickly in order to expedite departures. I went heads down to program the FMC; but felt the workload was normal. I remember seeing the airspeed accelerating through the first bug and mentally trying to calculate what configuration the aircraft should be at this speed. At this point the nose of the aircraft fell only slightly in order to gain airspeed to comply with the clearance. The PF and Pilot Monitoring simultaneously realized the flaps should be at 1. PF called for flaps 1. During the transition from Flaps 5 to 1 I noticed the Fast/Slow indicator flash momentarily as the aircraft was accelerating quickly. In the future to avoid a flap overspeed with an abnormal flap setting; I would recommend briefing the procedure for raising the flaps and using the auto pilot to lesson the workload.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.