A B767 flight crew reported that the tail skid contacted the runway on takeoff because a vr speed lo...

Attributes
ACN	1462858
Time
Date	201707
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B767-300 and 300 ER
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Takeoff
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	FMS/FMC
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Person 2
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 55 Flight Crew Total 25000 Flight Crew Type 16000
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Ground Event / Encounter Ground Strike - Aircraft

Narrative:

On takeoff roll. Captain called out 'rotate'. I began to rotate and noticed airplane didn't feel ready to fly; so I slowed the rotation rate until I felt the main gear liftoff. I then resumed to rotate to target pitch attitude. At that point I noticed the airspeed was right around V2. Climbed out of terminal area and then reviewed takeoff data. We determined the captain's airspeed bugs were set lower than the performance data called for. I concluded that was why the rotation felt mushy. Upon arrival; a walk around revealed a scrape on the tailskid. No other damage found by mechanic. Believe the event was caused by pilot monitoring (pm) setting wrong vr speed bug; pilot flying failed to catch that error and had already transitioned visual scan to outside the aircraft and failed to verify speed when pm made rotate call. Flaps 5 takeoff; reduced thrust made tail clearance minimal to begin with and margin for error was small. I feel proper adherence to standard rotation rate helped identify an irregular condition and subsequent action of slowing rotation rate prevented any damage from occurring.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B767 flight crew reported that the tail skid contacted the runway on takeoff because a Vr speed lower than the performance data specified was entered in the FMC.

Narrative: On takeoff roll. Captain called out 'rotate'. I began to rotate and noticed airplane didn't feel ready to fly; so I slowed the rotation rate until I felt the main gear liftoff. I then resumed to rotate to target pitch attitude. At that point I noticed the airspeed was right around V2. Climbed out of terminal area and then reviewed takeoff data. We determined the Captain's airspeed bugs were set lower than the performance data called for. I concluded that was why the rotation felt mushy. Upon arrival; a walk around revealed a scrape on the tailskid. No other damage found by mechanic. Believe the event was caused by Pilot Monitoring (PM) setting wrong Vr speed bug; Pilot Flying failed to catch that error and had already transitioned visual scan to outside the aircraft and failed to verify speed when PM made rotate call. Flaps 5 takeoff; reduced thrust made tail clearance minimal to begin with and margin for error was small. I feel proper adherence to standard rotation rate helped identify an irregular condition and subsequent action of slowing rotation rate prevented any damage from occurring.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

A B767 flight crew reported that the tail skid contacted the runway on takeoff because a vr speed lower than the performance data specified was entered in the FMC.