DOUG SPIERS: We'd been delayed a little bit.
The aeroplane was full of passengers and freight.
Sydney-Perth was about the limit of the 727-100.
Providing the wind was OK,
you could get to Perth,
and so we were full of fuel.
I was up to maximum take-off weight.
There had been rain around the Sydney area,
and we pushed back and taxied out normally.
We were holding at the holding point.
Everyone went 1-6 in Sydney...
and there was an aeroplane arriving,
which was a CP Air aeroplane, the DC-8.
It was a stretch DC-8.
We did make a remark about that being a long aeroplane
because you didn't...
there weren't many of them came to Australia in those days.
We'd been cleared to line up behind the landing DC-8.
There was an F27 behind us that had called ready and was told to hold,
and a DC-9 had reported on final behind the DC-8.
We were cleared to line up behind the landing DC-8,
to take-off after he'd cleared the runway.
And there was a Fokker Friendship reported ready
and was told to line up behind the departing 727, which was us.
So they were trying to get our aeroplane and the Fokker off
before the DC-9 arrived.
The DC-8 landed and was told to take taxiway on the right,
and we were cleared for an immediate take-off.
Now at that stage, we couldn't see that aeroplane.
He'd landed straight down the runway,
and there was a bit of a hump in runway 1-6 in Sydney for the tunnel
that goes underneath that runway.
And so the lower rotating beacon was down below the level of that hump...
and the upper beacon, in those days,
was aligned immediately down the centre of the aeroplane
so that the tail plane, fin and rudder had hid low rotating beacons.
So when we commenced our take-off, there was no lights visible
and there were also lights across the Botany Bay, Kurnell,
which sort of confused what lights were on the airport
and what lights were from Kurnell, the oil refinery across Botany Bay.
The take-off was normal in the beginning.
At some stage during the take-off roll,
this voice said, "How far ahead is he?"
And nobody answered it.
Subsequent to the accident,
that was determined to be Jimmy James' voice.
It was just before he reached rotate speed.
I became aware of that DC-8 on the runway.
The headlights caught my attention.
And I didn't say anything at the time
because I was approaching rotate speed
and I called rotate at the appropriate speed.
And Jimmy James flew the aeroplane.
Shortly after lift-off, we did feel this lurch
as we struck the DC-8 tail and we flew away.
There was eight feet knocked off its tail.
I did advise the tower that we did strike the DC-8.
The aeroplane had struck the DC-8
right in near the wing route of the right wing,
and there was a lot of humming
heading out that way to the flaps, ailerons and the fuel tanks.
And so we'd lost our A-system hydraulics...
and the fuel booster pumps that were in the right-hand wing
had been damaged.
We didn't want to do an overweight landing
because we didn't know what the integrity of the wheels were.
And so we elected to dump fuel.
Once we started dumping fuel, we kept getting out of balance
because we couldn't dump it as quickly out of the right wing
as we could out of the left.
So the flight engineer had to stop dumping out of the left side
till the right side caught up.
It took us nearly three-quarters of an hour
to get back down to as low as we could before we landed.
During the flight, Jimmy sent the flight engineer down the back
to have a look, because we had viewing windows,
to confirm that the gear was down and to see if he could see any damage.
So he checked the left wheel and the right wheel,
and some of the undercarriage doors had been damaged.
And so he could see that there was quite a lot of difference.
But, of course, you can't tell whether the tyres were blown or not
because without any weight on it, of course,
the tyre hasn't got a flat bottom.
So we didn't know what the condition of the tyres were.
But it did appear
that the parts of the undercarriage doors had disappeared.
They announced that the runway had been closed
because of debris on the runway.
And Jimmy said on the radio to the controller
it'd be interesting to know what that debris is
because it's probably from our aeroplane.
If they could identify what was wrong,
perhaps we might know what damage had been done to our aeroplane.
And also, because that was the long runway in Sydney,
he wasn't prepared to land without hydraulics
and not knowing whether he had brakes or whatever
to, um, land on the short runway.
And so he asked them to clear the runway
because we were going to land on runway 1-6.
As we came into land and extended some flaps...
there was a big, loud banging noise.
And what had happened was one of those undercarriage doors
was still hanging on by some wires on this hydraulic line
and turbulence caused by putting the flaps down
had caused it to flap around and it broke off.
And that was subsequently found
in the backyard of somebody's house on the approach to Sydney.
And didn't do any damage to anybody
but it stopped us from putting anymore flap out
because we weren't sure what was happening at that stage.
We'd carried out our checklists the way they should be carried out.
We got the aeroplane back on the ground in a safe manner
having completed all the necessary checklists that were required.
It must have been human error because procedures were in place.
Aeroplanes wouldn't be cleared for take-off with somebody on the runway.
Aeroplanes wouldn't be cleared to take-off
if there was debris on the runway.
In my opinion, the air traffic controller on duty at the time...
was concerned about the threshold end of the runway
and not the landing end of the runway.
And I believe, firmly believe,
that once he saw the DC-8 turn into the taxiway entrance...
that he'd concentrated his efforts on the threshold end of the runway.
Aeroplanes taking off, the Fokker lining up...
and how far the DC-9 had to go before it landed.
And whilst I believe the DC-8 did turn into the taxiway,
he used that taxiway for...
to turn the aeroplane around to come back up the runway.
Never got onto the parallel taxiway.
I was very happy with the way the whole team worked.
There was no harsh words or anything.
It was a team effort and a very professional manner.
(POIGNANT MUSIC)