A-320 scrapes wing on runway - video.

[stmymdy]

Personally I don't have a problem with being blown off the runway, or on the runway, or in a hotel room, whatever. As long as she's good looking.

i think on the runway could prove tricky

[MUSKEG]

rotateandfly I think lilfsister asked you a question.

[Rockie]

Rockie, let's see if I have this straight? You weren't there?

Glad you picked up on that Doc. I may be mistaken but I don't believe any of the other armchair quarterbacks on this forum were either. Were you?

[shitdisturber]

Personally I don't have a problem with being blown off the runway, or on the runway, or in a hotel room, whatever. As long as she's good looking.

i think on the runway could prove tricky

It adds to the thrill!

[Cleared to FL370]

It's always very sad to see an event like this occur. I fly a similar size jet and can certainly relate to the challenges of x-wind landings in it. Was a mistake made? sure, but I'm not an arm chair quarterback and wouldn't even begin to comment on the event, except to say I have great empathy for the crew. I am sure the Captain/FO have families and all suffer in events like this especially if a company decides on dismissal instead of perhaps specialized retraining and perhaps some sort of corrective discipline.

That in no way diminishes what the passengers went through, the terror of the event, and it's my understanding there were some injuries. Very very regretable, the outcome could have been much worse, thankfully it wasn't so.

[righthandman]

From a purely human-factors standpoint, there seems to be three basic opinions here, some of you guys wouldn't have tried to land, some of you guys would have tried to land and succeeded, because you are just that good, and some of you guys think the crew got caught out by a big surprise at the last minute. I'm one of those guys. Further, assuming they did get nailed by a big surprise at the last minute, there were always two possible outcomes, one is they roll the plane into a ball on the infield, and the other is that they fly away and live. I don't know what the LuftHansa chief pilot will make of the whole performance, but I hope their friends bought them a beer that night.

We made a trip in a B1900 one night, CYUL to CYMT in otherwise good VFR conditions. There were some wicked low level gusty winds starting pretty much around 1500' AGL. We were doing a visual approach, the whole approach was wild. I didn't mind but it was not so nice for the passengers I am sure. (This was years ago and I don't recall the actual or forcast wind speeds and direction, I just know it was gusty and shifting around equally rapidly.)

The F/O was flying, and doing a good job of it and if memory serves me right around the time we came up to the runway threshold I told him to go around and I didn't even bother to attempt another landing myself; as I said the pilot flying was doing everything right up to that point. I LOVE a good challange and I felt so ridiculous flying all the way back to Montreal that night but I had serious doubts about the safe/successful outcome of the landing so I made what felt like a really hard decision and returned. Incidently NONE of the passengers questioned the decision to return.

I eventually flew a 737 as an F/O for all of about 370 hours (until Bin Laden and his gang ruined things) and never had conditions quite as wild as on the subject video but I am wondering if I would have attempted that approach beyond the point where it was still reasonably "appropriate" to go around without all the heroics.

Without pax it might be fun to try mind you.

[buss]

Having flown both Boeing and airbus I can say the airbus leaves a lot to be desired in conditions such as above. The control response in Boeing is related to how fast you move the controls. In the airbus there is a limit to the control movement, ie you can move the stick as fast as you want but the computers only allow so much response in said amount of time.
Having landed in gusty x-winds with 320s I can see how this was possible. A Boeing may have gone around also but it may have been a slightly less exciting video.
Anyway, nice go-around.

[rotateandfly]

Lilfssister,

I was merely stating the fact that the first officer was female, the media is sure dwelling on that fact. Sadly enough we don't have a lot of female pilots at Lufthansa, right now there are about 300 with about 60 female captains, however there is an increasing trend at the flight school.
Wasn't trying to suggest anything if that's what you meant

[RatherBeFlyingInCanada]

WOW!

They were lucky to get out of this with no major damage!

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... storm.html

[Rockie]

Having flown both Boeing and airbus I can say the airbus leaves a lot to be desired in conditions such as above. The control response in Boeing is related to how fast you move the controls. In the airbus there is a limit to the control movement, ie you can move the stick as fast as you want but the computers only allow so much response in said amount of time.
Having landed in gusty x-winds with 320s I can see how this was possible. A Boeing may have gone around also but it may have been a slightly less exciting video.
Anyway, nice go-around.

The roll rate is limited to 15 degrees per second, but in the 320's case its poor response to turbulence is a function of the small size of the aileron, not the roll rate limit. The 330 has massive ailerons and easily handles any wing drop even though it has the same roll rate limit as the 320.

[lilfssister]

Lilfssister,

I was merely stating the fact that the first officer was female, the media is sure dwelling on that fact. Sadly enough we don't have a lot of female pilots at Lufthansa, right now there are about 300 with about 60 female captains, however there is an increasing trend at the flight school.
Wasn't trying to suggest anything if that's what you meant

Understood, r and f. Just one of my pet peeves

[righthandman]

Having flown both Boeing and airbus I can say the airbus leaves a lot to be desired in conditions such as above.

Yeah for my first jet, the Boeing was fun (while it lasted). The only largeish a/c I did fly was the '37 but I think whatever I flew it would have to respond in such a way that if the mechanical or software limits were exceeded by the wx conditions and my x-wind thechnique was good, I would still have been scapeing the right wing in this case, and not the left as in the video.

I viewed the video again and noticed that when they were still about 80% of the wingspan in altitude above the runway surface the pilot had to make a fairly aggressive turn even more into the wind to maintain the runway centerline. I think at that point instead of trying to crab even more into wind, that might have been my cue to blow that particular attempt off.

For me personally, having instructed a fair amount in the distant past left me with one valuable "mind set", and that was to not push beyond the point where things just don't seem to make sense or feel right... however you want to put it. Again, as others have stated there is so much going on in real time that we are unaware of, it's very hard to outguess the actions of the crew.

I saw (what I thought was) a good ad. in a business magazine where the quote was something to the effect that your corporate pilots make "million dollar decisions every moment" (vs. other executives that have weeks and months to plan out their next move). That's part of what makes the job so much fun.

[sportingrifle]

I just saw this video after having had the computer down for a few days. A few thoughts came to mid as I watched it.

The max demonstrated landing x wind is 29 gusting 38 knots and it was always stressed to us in training that this was not a limitation. What our instructors were trying to convey I never did figure out because after 13 years on the airplane I figured out that you sure as hell wouldn't want to land it in anything stronger.

The limiting flight control in the sideslip to align the aircraft with the runway appeared to actually be the rudder. The few times I landed in 30+ knot x winds, I found I was pretty much out of rudder. The other thing I noticed landing in strong x winds is that unless into wind aileron inputs were held in after touchdown, the upwind wind tended to lift. It appears that may have happened here.

When I was instructing in the simulator, I used to have students continue to try and land in ever increasing x winds, in order to show them just how difficult it could be and to get some idea of their own personal limits. Some had trouble at 25 knots, and I never saw anyone keep it on the runway after 40 knots.

Feel sorry for the crew, however no one got hurt, and this is how we learn.

"I'd much rather be down here, wishing we were up there, than up there wishing we were down here." Unk.

[GilletteNorth]

I prefer Rockies comments regarding this occurence over most of the others. I wasn't there either but...

sportingrifle said:

I noticed landing in strong x winds is that unless into wind aileron inputs were held in after touchdown, the upwind wind tended to lift. It appears that may have happened here.

I thought the same thing.

The aircraft is almost centered just before touchdown, then it slowly starts to drift left. With that huge body it's no wonder. It appeared to me the pilot attempted to make a last second correction to the right but it was a wee bit too much.
When the F/O leveled the wings for the touchdown... did the right wing suddenly have more lift due to it being "in wind" with more wing surface available for the gusts to work on while the left wing, being at least partially blanked by the large fuselage, have less lift causing a left roll resulting in the wing scrape before the crew could prevent it? Anyone want to confirm or deny the aerodynamics of that?

The overshoot was the only safe option remaining although I hope the pilots decide that earlier next time.

[Nark]

nevermind