Narrative:

This was a revenue flight with 15 passengers where I was the pilot flying. Conditions were VMC with approach entering us on a downwind and clearing us for a visual approach on a base leg. The approach was stable and unspectacular with the thermals requiring small corrections to maintain the flight path. We landed just after the touchdown zone where upon I applied aerodynamic braking; keeping the nose wheel off the ground; and thrust reversers; no brakes. We pulled off the runway and taxied to the gate without any realization that there had been a tail strike. This being discovered only after the first officer had completed his walk around when he saw the scrape marks on the tail by the aft equipment bay door. He did not remember seeing it when he did his preflight walk-around prior to this flight; so the only conclusion I could make from this was that it occurred since we departed. I asked the flight attendant if she felt or heard anything different upon landing - she said she had not. There was no indication upon landing that there had been a tail strike (no vibration; noise; shaker etc); however I did note and tell the first officer that something seemed 'different' during the rollout. This 'different' was due to the nose of the aircraft nose not 'dropping' by itself as it normally does. After some thinking on the way to the gate; I put this down to the aircraft being so light with only 15 passengers in the cabin and did not think much more about this until after the first officer informed me of the tail strike. The tail strike occurred due to excessive pitch while doing aerodynamic braking upon landing; which may not have been helped by being light and possibly more tail heavy than usual. The only thing that I can think of to help prevent this situation from occurring again would be for more information being presented as to the problems and highlight the dangers of using aerodynamic braking on modern airline transport aircraft. This is certainly prevalent in the airline industry (at least it seems so in my airline); but no one talks; highlights the dangers or sets the limits (e.g. What pitch angle will cause a tail strike) which would/may have prevented this accident from happening.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A CRJ200 had a tail strike after the Captain used only aerodynamic braking and thrust reverse to stop the very light aircraft.

Narrative: This was a revenue flight with 15 passengers where I was the pilot flying. Conditions were VMC with Approach entering us on a downwind and clearing us for a visual approach on a base leg. The approach was stable and unspectacular with the thermals requiring small corrections to maintain the flight path. We landed just after the touchdown zone where upon I applied aerodynamic braking; keeping the nose wheel off the ground; and thrust reversers; no brakes. We pulled off the runway and taxied to the gate without any realization that there had been a tail strike. This being discovered only after the First Officer had completed his walk around when he saw the scrape marks on the tail by the aft equipment bay door. He did not remember seeing it when he did his preflight walk-around prior to this flight; so the only conclusion I could make from this was that it occurred since we departed. I asked the Flight Attendant if she felt or heard anything different upon landing - she said she had not. There was no indication upon landing that there had been a tail strike (no vibration; noise; shaker etc); however I did note and tell the First Officer that something seemed 'different' during the rollout. This 'different' was due to the nose of the aircraft nose not 'dropping' by itself as it normally does. After some thinking on the way to the gate; I put this down to the aircraft being so light with only 15 passengers in the cabin and did not think much more about this until after the First Officer informed me of the tail strike. The tail strike occurred due to excessive pitch while doing aerodynamic braking upon landing; which may not have been helped by being light and possibly more tail heavy than usual. The only thing that I can think of to help prevent this situation from occurring again would be for more information being presented as to the problems and highlight the dangers of using aerodynamic braking on modern airline transport aircraft. This is certainly prevalent in the airline industry (at least it seems so in my airline); but no one talks; highlights the dangers or sets the limits (e.g. what pitch angle will cause a tail strike) which would/may have prevented this accident from happening.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.