AN Airbus A340-500 carrying 275 people vanished from sight and was invisible on airport radar screens immediately after a botched take-off at Melbourne airport, in which it came within seconds of disaster.

For a few terrifying moments, those on duty in the airport’s control tower had no way of knowing the fate of Emirates Airlines flight 407 after it limped into the air and flew low over houses in the densely populated suburb of Keilor on March 20.

The Emirates plane, bound for Dubai, struggled to take off and then gain altitude after one of its pilots wrongly calculated the weight of the aircraft by 100tonnes.

The tail of the plane hit the runway five times before the captain ordered full thrust at the last minute to lift the Airbus over the airport perimeter fence, knocking out a strobe light and an antenna on the way.

A preliminary report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureaufound pilot error was to blame for the accident, which has been described as the closest Australia has come to a major airline disaster.

But now Rob Mason, president of the air traffic controllers union, Civil Air, has revealed that after take-off, the low-flying Airbus disappeared from view of the airport control tower.

“The aircraft was lost to sight against the lights of the industrial estate to the south — it was not high enough to be seen,” Mr Mason told The Weekend Australian. He said air traffic controllers noticed something was wrong when the plane was halfway down the runway.

“My members told me the aircraft was not accelerating normally,’ he said.

“Then they saw sparks coming from the back of the aircraft as its tail struck the ground as it tried to become airborne.”

Sources say that after leaving the airport the Airbus still struggled to climb quickly, meaning it did not immediately show up on the control tower’s radars, which show an aircraft only when it has reached take-off height.

“This would have been the worst civil air disaster in Australia’s history by a very large margin,” said aviation expert Ben Sandilands.

“There would have been no survivors from that plane, and they would have gone down in the Melbourne suburb of Keilor Park, so there would have been deaths on the ground also.”

After take-off, the pilots realised the plane’s tail had been damaged so they returned to the airport for an emergency landing in which no passengers were hurt. After being interviewed by Australian authorities, the two pilots returned to Dubai, where they say the airline handed them letters of resignation.

Emirates says it has taken steps to ensure such a mistake never happens again, including extra computer safeguards and cross-checking rules.

“The EK407 Melbourne event continues to be treated very seriously with the highest priority at the most senior level in the company,” an Emirates spokesman said this week.

The ATSB is due to release its interim report on the accident at the end of next month.

Source: The Australian