Scary Aborted Landing

Published on November 29th, 2008

Man, if they’d hit the runway at that angle it wouldn’t have been pretty.

25 users responded in " Scary Aborted Landing "

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# 1 wcswett said, on November 29th, 2008 at 6:25 pm

I’ve been on planes making landings like that in wicked crosswinds. The wind often abates close to the ground, so you descend sideways down to around 50 feet and then yaw to line up on the runway. Not much fun for us passengers.

# 2 Somebody_Else said, on November 29th, 2008 at 6:38 pm

Yikes. Crosswinds suck.

# 3 AdmFubar said, on November 29th, 2008 at 6:54 pm

banzai
like isnt there a rule if you are over so much yaw on approach you would abort??? he looked way over for a long time…

# 4 bobbo said, on November 29th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

“The wind often abates close to the ground” /// Thats true but “crosswind on the ground where you are going to land” is constantly monitored and reported–so the crew knew 5 minutes before this video clipped started whether or not they could land, or at least land safely.

Absent confirmation/explanation, I’d say this was a video of a “planned go-around” for a crew just having fun or on a training mission.

In all cases, they made the decision to go around WAY TOO LATE.

Idiot captain needs to be a co-pilot for awhile.

# 5 Don said, on November 29th, 2008 at 7:08 pm

Don’t ya just love one runway airports that are too far from proper divert fields. Why else would he try a landing like that?

Ah, fuel prices. The pilots are under pressure to never abort landings these days!

Don

# 6 rectagon said, on November 29th, 2008 at 7:29 pm

Fuel prices? Um… that might be a tad “last month”ish.

Oh, BTW… true “too late” would have been 10 seconds later.

# 7 Bryan Price said, on November 29th, 2008 at 7:42 pm

My wife went through three aborted landings trying to land in JNB back in September. The fourth took. I didn’t find out about it until she got back home in the states. She was just glad to be back on the ground after that.

# 8 Johnny said, on November 29th, 2008 at 9:14 pm

Pilots are simply amazing. Could you even attempt anything close to this on a routine basis? I couldn’t and have have a few landings of the same type. It freaked me out every time until I started traveling with a pilot who started to explain it all. They are there for the last 10 seconds of the flight and are well worth it.

# 9 fftspred said, on November 29th, 2008 at 10:43 pm

None of you who are not pilots do not even have a concept of what is going on here.
What you see is an airplane trying to land sideways. Right Poster?.
Its called a cross wind landing. Go type that into myyouspacetube.com and you’ll see a whole bunch more videos that will make you really scream like a little idiot girl. In fact, look for old Hong Kong airport clips, KLM cargo in particular.

[Don't be a butthead. I know what a crosswind landing is and have posted a few on DU. I posted this one because of the last second full power abort... which was pretty damn exciting. - ed.]

# 10 techdownunder said, on November 29th, 2008 at 11:44 pm

Where is this?

# 11 Badcam said, on November 30th, 2008 at 12:36 am

I believe that I’ve been through this experience. We were coming into Buenos Aires at just before midnight. There was some severe weather and the pilot made six attempts to land and was successful on the sixth, thank goodness. People were very scared on that flight, I can tell you.

# 12 Nimby said, on November 30th, 2008 at 3:43 am

Well, I certainly didn’t inconvenience as many people in my single engine planes but I’ve crabbed many a crosswind landing. The most fun was ages ago at Prescott, Arizona where the wind comes down off the mountain across the runway. Even better, the runway is built on top of a plateau meaning all you see is a cliff face on approach and then it dips in the middle giving lots of optical illusions when you crab a landing. Fun.

# 13 Paddy-O said, on November 30th, 2008 at 5:47 am

Must have been training. The x-winds were higher than the upper limit allowed for landings.

# 14 soundwash said, on November 30th, 2008 at 6:10 am

iirc…i believe most modern jetliner’s undercarriage have the ability to land in these conditions. the landing gear turns to align with the runway when you come in with nasty x-winds.. that looked a bit outside the the technologist ability. to say the least..

i’d say that plane defiantly had a a serious case of the crabs.. :p (its called crabbing iirc.)

aside: wasn’t the B-52 the first to utilize this tech? (correct me if i’m wrong, plz.)

-s

# 15 Paddy-O said, on November 30th, 2008 at 6:39 am

# 14 soundwash said, “believe most modern jetliner’s undercarriage have the ability to land in these conditions. the landing gear turns to align with the runway when you come in with nasty x-winds..”

Umm, no. You’re thinking of the B52.

# 16 amodedoma said, on November 30th, 2008 at 6:43 am

Pilot showed excellent skill and judgement. Probrably ex USN with lots of carrier landing experience.

# 17 Marc Perkel said, on November 30th, 2008 at 7:16 am

Hell of a pilot. Smart enough to know how to land in a crosswind and smart enough to know when not to.

# 18 bb said, on November 30th, 2008 at 7:31 am

#16 – ah yes. Reminds me of the Navy expression, “There are two ways to do dangerous things, not at all or all the time.” One should never occasionally do dangerous things, either get experienced at it (while still being aware that it is dangerous) or never do it.

Landing on an aircraft carrier and cross-wind landings on land qualify.

Exercise for the student: Why no cross-wind landings on an aircraft carrier?

# 19 tokabowla said, on November 30th, 2008 at 8:05 am

#18
Because the carrier just turns itself into the wind.
Cookie please…

# 20 heehee said, on November 30th, 2008 at 9:29 am

The abort was likely because he was too far down the runway – not enough runway left to land on, and complete a safe roll.

Looks like he was very good. Most commercial pilots are outstanding – and they don’t want to die.

All you back seat pilots should avoid looking out the window on takeoff and landing.

# 21 bobbo said, on November 30th, 2008 at 9:39 am

How many good folks here can keep in mind the difference between “safe” and “right on the edge?”

As a passenger, do you want to land “right on the edge” risking your life, or do you want the airline to go to the alternate landing site or circle for awhile if they have the gas?

Safety DEMANDS that the decision to go around be made at altitude.

BTW–no airline pilot lands “on the edge” very often so such landings are always dangerous. An act of cowardice rather than skill.

# 22 Miguel said, on November 30th, 2008 at 10:03 am

Pilots often do this first approach to scare away rabbits and other rodents that might otherwise be sucked into the jets.

In this case, however, the pilot was commemorating the 20th anniversary of his wedding. His wife was in the plane, of course.

# 23 Rich said, on November 30th, 2008 at 10:39 am

I’ve seen a dozen videos like this with planes struggling with crosswinds on landing. They are all recent videos. Could it be global warming? Hmmmm.

# 24 Thekeeper said, on December 1st, 2008 at 6:55 am

Actually a old B52 could have greased it in pretty as a picture. They have undercarriages that can turn for wicked crosswind landings. Almost to the point that the pilot is looking over his shoulder to make the landing.

# 25 Miguel Correia said, on December 3rd, 2008 at 4:47 am

It was no ex-USN pilot. At the very most, it could have been an ex-FAP pilot (Força Aérea Portuguesa), as the plane belongs to SATA – Air Azores, the Portuguese Airline based at the Azores islands. This was most probably in the islands, as the accent of the people overheard sounds like from that place.

It was not necessarily a training flight as there is no such a thing as “crosswind limit” for aircraft. What manufacturers publish is a “crosswind maximum *demonstrated*”. It just means their test pilots didn’t get to test in higher crosswinds than the published ones, but it does not forbid landing with higher ones.

The pilot did not push the envelop. The technique is to crab until just before touchdown and then line the plane with runway and land. Small plane pilots even go further to land with cross-controls (plane rolled to the side of the wind, so it doesn’t drift to the other side of the runway, and rudder to the opposite side, so it keeps parallel to the runway). He went around at a perfectly safe time to do so.

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