This happened yesterday in Hamburg. The plane was an A-320. Looks like the left wing actually scrapes the runway.
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Now that is drifting!
I never knew planes could fly like that.
I hate when that happens.
What’s the allowable landing yaw in degrees for passenger flights? (Bubba?)
Landed OK on the 2nd go-round. Yes, they lost the left winglet on the 1st attempt:
http://tinyurl.com/2zyzs4
oh no! now I am all worried about flying on wednesday thanks!
quite a show, hmm?
Actually, there was quite a discussion about this, TAF reported winds 290° with gusts up to 60Kts. First approach was done down RWY24 which would leave them with a x-wind gusts component of about 40Kts. Maximum gusts for the 320 is 38Kts. Afaik that’s the maximum x-wind component where full rudder will give the pilot enough controll to manouver at low speed.
Also, it seems that unlike “normal” planes, the Airbusses have a different aileron control. Normally, the ailerons will deflect as far as you turn the yoke / move the stick. With the AB, they have something called “roll rate law” so what you get from throwing the stick into a corner is a defined rate of roll.
So… and that’s just guessing, he came in with quite a crab angle to compensate the x-wind. Shortly before the flare, he kicks left rudder to get out of the flare. That accelerates the right wing, decelerates the left wing, generating more lift on the right than on the left. To keep the airplane from rolling to the left, you’ll have to apply some right aileron. Just at this moment, they seem to be hit by a pretty massive gust from the right, right wing comes up, left wing drops, all that with a significant left rudder input. The cockpit crew reacted quickly and absolutely correct by going around. Actually, when I first saw then video I thought they should have initiated the goaround quite a bit earlier. You see the nose swing right quite significantly before that hole stuff, probably in an attempt to stay on the center line in a strong gust. My first reaction there was “go around”.
The second approach was done to RW330 with only 40° wind angle and thus a smaller crosswind component. It was uneventful.
The plane has been repaired and is said to be back in service.
Btw, the captain is a 39yr old pilot, his 1st officer a 24yr old lady. Well done chaps!
That was a close call.
pj
# 3 Ubiquitous Talking Head,
the yaw at touchdown is not limited by it being a pax flight or not but by the amount of lateral load the landing gear can take. The normal technique is to align as good as possible and not touch down with any significant crab angle.
pj
Of course, the person holding the camera utters, “Whoa!” when the plane touches down. Do you ever expect anything else? Someone always talks.
sorry, got the numbers wrong up there… the runways are 23 (230°, first approach) and 33 (330°, second, successful landing) and the wind was 290°. That makes the 33 even more favourable (40° wind angle instead of 60°)
pj
#6
When I 1st saw the video my conclusion was that he was landing outside the parameters for cross winds. Now if he was driving a B-52 he could have done it a lot easier.
Pretty good pilot though.
One can’t feel more helpless than when running out of rudder on a crosswind landing. pjakobs is correct on the lateral load limits on the gear when coming out of the “crab.”
The PIC used the “de-crag” procedure, by the book. What is somewhat surprising is that he didn’t use a slip maneuver and land right gear 1st, right wing down, set the left gear down, then the nose gear. The max demonstrated x-wind landing for an A320 is 33 kts., gusts to 38 kts. — 40+ kts. reported should have told him something, like “Hey, don’t land on this runway!!”
An extreme slip tends to freak the pax right out of their seats, but in an emergency will get the plane down. At least the PIC had another runway option and made the right decision to “go around.”
#10 did not fully mention that the B-52’s wheels will pivot into the direction of the runway. So a 52 would land with the nose pointing away from the direction of the runway and then center on the wheels as it landed. That design was actually kept a secret for many years.
Does anyone have a video of the 2nd approach and landing?
‘A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill’
I fly the A-320 here in the states and I wouldn’t have pressed that landing. Maybe a spin or two in holding to see if the wind was getting better or worse- see above.
As a side not, next time you pay $39 for your ticket, consider the caliber or pilot that is buying, and then consider if you want to bet your life on it. Todays pilots are way underpaid!
That would make for a good ad for adult diapers.
One thing that strikes me as dangerous about the pilot’s decision to abort and make a second attempt is he didn’t have time to assess the damage to his left wing caused when it hit the runway. If the damage had been more significant than it was, he could have been taking off in a plane that was no longer airworthy. However, he may not have even been aware, as his plate of “inputs” seems rather full at that moment.
Talking about an A-320 landing at Hamburg, watch this..
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7666401f11
Oops, not at Hamburg.
#13 Miguel: I don’t think so and even if: it was uneventful
#11 Bubba: well, we both know who’s call it is to accept a landing clearance or reject it. It’s however clearly a good question to ask why they were operating on the runway with more x-wind
# 14 busdriver320: while your comment on pilot’s pay is right, those guys were Lufthansa. I doubt that there are many airlines with better Training records.
#16 gary: there was no decision to go around. There was no margin to do anything else, given the amount of control and speed and remaining runway length. Yes, more damage to the wing could have been caused and they had no way of knowing. But such is aviation.
pj
According to the German newspaper Bild, the aircraft was hit by a 120 km/h gust just before it touched down. This was the tail end of cyclone “Emma” which caused 15 deaths in Europe.
well, 60Kts is 108km/h, add the usual BILD drama margin and you have your 120km/h 😉 so the gusts were in line with the TAF – that is, if BILD has the figure from real data and not from the TAF.
pj
#21, pj, there’s no worse feeling in the world than running out of rudder in a taildragger without a steerable tailwheel after touchdown, unless it’s watching a right x-wind pick up your right wing.
Ow!
I wonder if their equiv. of the NTSB will find the controller’s runway call a contributing factor. I refused a tower call once in SAT — the airport has a x-wind runway available but the lazy moran wanted me on the main. No other traffic. Jerk. We had a “nice” talk in the tower cab.
#22 Bubba:
I would think that the BFU (which is the German equivalent of the NTSB) will do a thorough investigation. But as I said before: the final call is with the pilot. If he accepts a clearance, it’s his decision.
pj
Wow, that’s one hell of a cross wind. Common occurence–>inexperienced pilot?
#14
While I don’t disagree about pilot pay,
$39 for a ticket on an a320 … Where?
Hmmmmm… skidmarks on the runway and on the pilot’s underwear.
I was flying a presidential mission one time and was “ordered” to land at Andrews with 90 Degree crosswinds at 40 knots gusting to 65 knots. When I informed ground of the out of limits wind I was told “land between the gusts”. X-wind limit was 25 knots if memory serves.
On short final, I was out of rudder to keep the airplane on centerline. I kept on the centerline by applying asymetrical thrust from the downwind engines.
Once on the ground, I asked the loadmasters how he got the clamshell open so fast to empty our cargo and he said the doors hadn’t been openned—we were being buffeted while fully parked.
SO–while the crew looked at me as a superman, I resolved NEVER to follow such a dumbshit order and a few years later I didn’t on an unrelated safety issue.
Young and dumb–but pretty good stick.
in the end, the old saying is still true: any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.
pj
OK, I’m not a pilot but I’ve spent a few hours in the air and three weeks ago a similar thing happened when we were landing at Copenhagen in an SAS AB330. First time I experienced an aborted landing after the wheels had actually touched the ground.
The feeling of helplessness is pretty scary, but somehow cool at the same time. Nice to see what that looks like from outside the plane.
I forgot to post my agreement with Busdriver at #14. And pjacobs–why would you ever compliment a pilot for making the wrong decision to land, to land on the wrong runway, and to abort too late?
Now, my own stupidity at post #27 because frankly I wanted to see if I could do it and the “orders” from ground control would have been ignored if I had felt like it. Now–I guess I disrespected my crew, but I would never have done that with civilians on board.
Piloting is 99% judgment that these pilots did NOT DISPLAY. As we were told (often!)–the 1% skill of flying could be taught to monkeys if you had enough banannas.