An Air France Airbus A350 hit its tail while taking off and the passengers felt the impact. The incident occurred when flight AF356 from Paris landed in Toronto, Canada, operated by Air France's Airbus A350900 with registration number FHTYH, which overturned during landing.
The goaround was caused by a destabilized approach that caused the aircraft to “bounce” on the runway. However, when it was time to take off again, the aircraft tilted its nose up too much and the tail of the aircraft clipped the runway floor.
The moment was captured by passengers in the video below, where you can hear the sound of the impact and notice the different vibrations:
After contact, the plane managed to leave the ground and flight attendants asked passengers to remain seated. They briefly explained that there was a problem during landing that led to the goaround and that the A350 would land again soon.
On the second approach everything went normally and the jet landed safely. The damage to the tail was clearly visible as shown in the images below:
Air France's Airbus A350800 (FHTYH, built in 2021) sustained significant rear fuselage damage during a tailstrike landing on runway 24L. Flight #AF356 from ParisCDG initiated a goaround and returned approximately 15 minutes later for a safe landing on the same runway. Nobody was… pic.twitter.com/hGOgv3fI6d
JACDEC (@JacdecNew) January 22, 2024