An A320 crew reported that a Tower Controller issued very rapid complex runway clearing and hold short instructions after their landing. As a result the Captain became task saturated and failed to bring the aircraft out of reverse.
Synopsis
An A320 crew reported that a Tower Controller issued very rapid complex runway clearing and hold short instructions after their landing. As a result the Captain became task saturated and failed to bring the aircraft out of reverse.
Narrative
After a normal landing on Runway XX and just after the 80 KT callout; I; the pilot flying am in the process of bringing the throttles out of full reverse; when the Tower Controller; just prior to the time that the 60 KT callout would occur starts rattling off a overly lengthy instruction to hold short of Runway XY; like I'm going to take my own sweet time getting off. This is all while we are trying to slow the aircraft; locate Taxiway P; which was real close to Taxi High-speed S which I was initially going for. Simultaneously the First Officer is trying to verify the instructions. We exit the runway and all is winding down; or so it seemed; for I then hear the sound of the engines RPM increasing. Instinctively I throttle back thinking that somehow the throttles were above idle. Only problem was; they weren't; I was in reality going into reverse. Confused; I ask the First Officer 'what the #@%* is going on.' He seeing that I was task saturated with controlling the aircraft looks down and brings the throttles out of reverse after the aircraft is beginning to travel backwards. An uneventful taxi in ensued afterwards. I really believe the 60 KT call got lost in the shuffle by ATC's unnecessarily long attempt to micromanage my aircraft; without realizing the mechanics involved in properly stopping; controlling and navigating big airliners.
Second reporter narrative
The exit instructions were unintelligible due to Controller's rapid fire transmission and the noise of max reverse thrust. The Captain took the aircraft as we decelerated to taxi speed and just prior to the intended exit taxiway. We exited the runway at the last taxiway prior to the intersection of Runway XX and Runway XY. An aircraft was parked in front of our aircraft and we were just able to clear Runway XX before the Captain had to stop the aircraft. A moment later; as I was reviewing the airport diagram page; I heard a loud roar and immediately assumed another aircraft was near to us and adding power. My first thought was it was the aircraft in front of us. Upon looking at the throttle quadrant of our aircraft; I saw the reverser paddle switches were not stowed. I looked at our EPR gauges and realized the Captain had added power with reverse thrust selected. I yelled 'get out of the reversers.' The aircraft's nose had un-weighted; however; I was not able to tell if the nose gear had lifted off the ground. As he returned the throttles to forward idle; the nose strut retracted. Upon arrival at the gate; we contacted Maintenance and wrote a discrepancy due to the potential for ingestion of FOD.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.