NTSB Releases Report on JetBlue Tail Strike in Hayden, Colorado

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released it’s final report on the JetBlue tail strike that happened in Hayden, Colorado back in January 2022.

A JetBlue Airbus A320 was operating B61748 between Hayden, Colorado and Fort Lauderdale when the aircraft suffered this accident on departure.

Without further ado, let’s get into it…

NTSB Releases Report on JetBlue Tail Strike in Hayden, Colorado…

The 12 page final report from the NTSB on the JetBlue tail strike incident in Hayden, Colorado listed a couple of takings from this incident.

In the probable cause and findings, the following was mentioned:

“The captain’s rotation of the airplane pitch before the rotation speed on takeoff due to his surprise about encountering head on landing traffic, which resulted in an exceedance of the airplane’s pitch limit and a subsequent tail strike.”

“Contributing to the accident was the flight crew’s expectation bias that the incoming aircraft was landing on the same runway as they were departing from, and the conflicting traffic’s nonstandard use of phraseology when making position calls on the common traffic advisory frequency.”

The incoming aircraft mentioned was a King Air that was on final approach into Hayden, Colorado, just as the JetBlue flight was departing.

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see what other lessons will be learned from this incident, as flying is always about development and further training for future pilots. Incidents like these make flying much safer year-on-year, and makes the likelihood of incidents rarer as each year passes by.

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