[maxamillion]

Ed in GA.

I totally agree.

I have witnessed some airline flight deck confusions that are as scary as all hell.
There still are some old school pilots out there, but they are few and far between.

Go to this link for a pretty good image

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x104/masedogg19/LHc.jpg

Rg.

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Last edited by maxamillion; 03-03-2008 at 03:52 PM.

[rormeister]

This gives "Hydroplaning" a whole new meaning. It is highly doubtful if the Airbus Manual would ever suggest a pilot land a commercial aircraft at a 45 degree angle to the runway. But, from a photographic perspective, what a great capture both the vid and the still.

[maxamillion]

Wind was 290/33 gusts to 49 (time ~ 13:55)
Flight LH 044 (D-AIQP) a A320 from Munich
Runway, landing 23 LOC-DME (ATIS gave no other option)
After G/A pilots elected runway 33 also LOC-DME approach, landed safely.

Airbus recommended limits.
T/O 29 kts gusting 38 kts.
LDG 33 kts gusting 38 kts.

Only for dry runway, goes down for flooded runways, snow, ice etc.

Rg.

[calicojack]

Personally, I'm glad to see that the pilot had the skill and ability to get out of that lousy situation. (maybe it was dumb luck, but dumb luck probably would have over reacted!)

[J.Scott]

Wind was 290/33 gusts to 49 (time ~ 13:55)
Flight LH 044 (D-AIQP) a A320 from Munich
Runway, landing 23 LOC-DME (ATIS gave no other option)
After G/A pilots elected runway 33 also LOC-DME approach, landed safely.

Airbus recommended limits.
T/O 29 kts gusting 38 kts.
LDG 33 kts gusting 38 kts.

Only for dry runway, goes down for flooded runways, snow, ice etc.

Rg.

Now that is more believable! I watched the news today and they kept saying that the crosswind was 250 kph. That is the strength of a category 4 hurricane. Ain't nobody landing an airplane under those conditions! I see he changed to runway 33 and landed successfully - good plan. There will most definitely be an investigation.

[stewart_photo]

I've read numerious reports of the incident. First, in defense of the pilot, strong sidewinds are fairly typical at that airport. The problem that particular day was unusually strong shifting winds. The pilot was correcting for a crosswind as he attempted to land. That crosswind suddenly shifted (not a usual event at this airport), causing the plane to drift off to one side of the runway. In an effort to prevent that, the pilot tried to turn back the other direction. However, just as he did, the sidewind suddenly returned (also not a usual event), causing the plane to bank too much. This caused the wing to touch. The pilot was able to recover and abort entirely as the plane drifted off the other side of the runway.

News stories reported multiple landing attempts. However, the others (newspapers said two, but official accounts say one) were overflights to allow ground personnel to assess underside damage which might impact another landing attempt. The plane landed safely on the second actual landing attempt on another runway at the same airport.

Again, the exact events impacting this particular landing were not usual. Other planes landed both before and afterwards without experiencing the same exceptional conditions. The investigation continues, but the very tough German air safety officials have already pretty much cleared the pilot (nothing is official until the investigation is fully completed).

stewart

[nanok]

the 250km/h wind is obviously "news", no need to comment on that. thanks maximillion for the more realistic numbers.

now a bit of a reality check for some other people: please do not make statements about how the pilot should lose his license, and so on, flying is not like driving, and most of us (me included) barely have a vague idea what it means to be at the controls of an airline jet, with 100+ lives depending on your decisions. many things come into question, fuel is one of them, as somebody stated, and scary as it may sound, in some situations it may be prefferable to crash land, controlled, on the runway, break the landing gear, get each and every passanger shit-scared, but out of the aircraft in one piece, than to circle around with fuel vapours powering your engines, hoping "it will get better", and run the risk of ending up crash landing, but forcefully and with no power for the engines to assist you. how many of us feel brave and cold blooded enough to make such a decision, and save lives, if the need may arise? please take it easy on the judgments, we really don't know everything involved.

cross winds are not uncommon, and in this particular case it didn't look from the video it was that strong to endanger the landing. from that point of view, the captain seems to have been right trying to land, and it did look pretty okay mostly, up untill the pre-touchdown straightening, in these conditions, especially, that is the critical point: if you do it too early, the wind will catch the aircraft and you would be drifting on touchdown, which is not good, if you do it too late you might touch down at an angle and break the landing gear, or even roll on the highway in a fireball (well, i am exagerating a bit), also, you might do it all right, but not compensate for the side effect of the straightening ruther command (which is, the wing plane in the wind will lift of, after which the wind will cach under it, lift the wing even further, and make it very hard to bring back, especially at touchdown speed, where the effect of aerodynamic commands is greatly under-powered), you might also do every thing right, every single litle thing, and have a gust of wind come out of nowhere, at the "right" moment. we really don't know, and probably noone ever will, except perhaps the pilot (_perhaps_). what is really strange to me is, if that runway was not the only one, and there was one better alligned for that wind, why not use that other one (this might be a control tower mistake), but even that might be normal: very busy airport, only runway available, weather conditions seem to be within acceptable limits.

all in all: shit happens, and overall, the aircraft is in one piece, and everybody is alive and well (if shaken. but what's life without a bit of adrenalyn ). my respects to the pilot, he recovered very well, and managed to succesfully abort the landing in a very tricky situation, to say the least. as somebody once said: a good landing is a landing you can walk away from. even if he made a mistake, everybody gets to live and tell the tale, ultimately due to his actions, and anybody can make mistakes, even airline pilots. sorry, but it's true. if one can't deal with that fact, one might decide to never come out of one's house again (not that one would be safer there, btw)

ps: as a fun note: i am not absolutely sure about the a320, but i am pretty sure: at 250km/h steady wind, front (not side wind), it would land like a hellicopter, if not going backwards. this is just to give people an idea of what a 250km/h side wind actually means . if the wind would be 250km/h, steady, one would rather choose to land on the runway sideways (using the width instead of the length of it), into the wind, as it would be more than enough (you could land that jumbo-jet on a dime, in theory)

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Last edited by nanok; 03-04-2008 at 04:53 PM.

[flyer]

Could be lots of reasons. I actually believe the pilot did an amazing job and don't question his actions.

Maybe it's fuel related? Maybe the tower said it was safe? Maybe strong winds are typical at the airport? etc...

There are lots of runways that experience strong winds consistently across the world.

Looks like it's a very strong unexpected gust that took the plane off it's course.

On a lighter note, what lens do you think they were using for that photo?

When you ask a clearance to land, the tower never says it is safe. The PILOT is the one who is responsible for the decision. The tower is there to make sure there aren't two planes trying to land at the same time and same place. Because another plane was able to land just before doesn't necessarily make it safe for another one. The pilot should have asked to be cleared to a runway that had less of a crosswind (that's what he did on his second attempt). I just hope I never fly with that pilot.

[flyer]

Personally, I'm glad to see that the pilot had the skill and ability to get out of that lousy situation. (maybe it was dumb luck, but dumb luck probably would have over reacted!)

Actually, the A320 is flying on computer 99% of the time. I' pretty sure the pilot is kissing the computers right now (7 of them on the A320: 6 arguing together and a tie breaker)

[Lowell Goudge]

having said our piece lets leave the poor pilot alone, I think we have all collectively had our kick at the can.

I have a fundamental question with respect to the airport.

I see 2 runways designated 23 and 33 respectively, representing 230 degrees and 330 degrees, and a comment that cross winds are normal at this airport.

while it is quite true that since the runways are at an angle of 100 degrees to each other hence under normal winds at least one of them is almost into the wind, most airports I know will close one runway with high winds, specifically so that this does not happen. The result, however is airport delays because the capacity is cut.

One has to ask the question here, why was this runway open? That is the airports responsibility, isn't it?

In the end, I suspect there will be multiple causes found for this, and we have only touched the surface.

[flyer]

having said our piece lets leave the poor pilot alone, I think we have all collectively had our kick at the can.

I have a fundamental question with respect to the airport.

I see 2 runways designated 23 and 33 respectively, representing 230 degrees and 330 degrees, and a comment that cross winds are normal at this airport.

while it is quite true that since the runways are at an angle of 100 degrees to each other hence under normal winds at least one of them is almost into the wind, most airports I know will close one runway with high winds, specifically so that this does not happen. The result, however is airport delays because the capacity is cut.

One has to ask the question here, why was this runway open? That is the airports responsibility, isn't it?

In the end, I suspect there will be multiple causes found for this, and we have only touched the surface.

A lot of pilots would rater take a stiff crosswind on a long runway than a shorter runway with the wind almost head on. It comes from the fact that quite a few airline pilots are over 50 and learned to fly about 30 years ago when they were told that any touch down within the first third of the runway is all right, so with time, it became common practice with quite a few of them to aim for that point one third down the runway (it almost seem to be standard practice for Air France pilots). If you remember the Air France A340 that crashed in Toronto, that was one of the cause (although NOT the only one) that led to that crash. For myself, whenever I can, I take the headwind. That comes from learning to fly gliders first with a very long span in relation to the lenght of the fuselage that makes it rather challenging to land in moderately stiff crosswind.

[Patang]

Having flown in and out of Hamburg airport fairly recently, this guy did a great job. I was flying with the budget arm GermanWings which was scary enough! But coming in to land it was incredibly bumpy with wind shear. It wasn't as bad as that particular instance, but it is most definitely well known at the airport. As stated above, the pilot had bad luck with the weather with those shears.

Reminds me of the time I was flying into Basel-Mulhouse - had a big shear as we're about to land - pushed the plane right down. Pilot powered up and did a go around. Freaked the hell out of everyone on board though...

[JahJahwarrior]

... That pilot should lose his license and never be allowed to fly passengers again. He did a excellent job saving the ship, but exercised poor judgment in even making an attempt in those conditions.

Yes, I agree! And the people who build houses which get ruined in tornadoes, they should be burned at the stake! Also, all shipbuilders who have had ships run aground in storms, they should be shot! We cannot let menaces like this harm people in our modern world!!


Eh.... or maybe there was a mixture of "gray area" and freak accidents. Stuff happens: ships run aground due to storms. Houses get torn apart because of them. Planes crash because of them. I feel it is ridiculous to call for this pilot to lose his license because of what seems to be a freak accident. I'm not saying he exercised amazing judgement, but in life you do what you have to. His job is to land that plane, and the landing doesn't have to be smooth to be a landing. Landings have to happen in less than ideal circumstances, and that's a daily occurance and fact. It just so happened that Murphy was riding the winds that day, and turned what is usually a bumpy landing into an unusually bumpy landing.

Am I an expert? No, but I have landed a plane before (with the pilot 'teeping his hand on the yoke )

[Denis]

I was a pilot in the Airforce, looking at the video it is obious where the error occured. The excessive crosswing is the problem but not entirely. When the pilot attempted to land he appllied rudder to straighten the aircraft. With wind exceeding the limit, the left wing found itself with a lack of sufficient lift while the right encountered an increase behond the control limits. Result was the aircraft quickly banked left into the runway. If the pilot had elected to overshoot while excessive yaw was encountered due to wing gust, it would not have been an issue. Pilot judment was weak as he should have enticipated possible landing difficulties knowing the weather conditions by briefing limits and overshoot procedures in the event of extreme wind gusts.

As previously stated pilot errors, like the Gimli glidder. Read the final board of inquiry before blaming the pilot. In short, in those days when a fuel guage did not work, dipping the tank was a legal way to fly. In this instance, the pilot requested the Toronto technician dip the tanks due to guage failure. He failed to use the proper measuring stick and formula. Aircraft flew to Ottawa from Toronto. On arrival the pilot felt the aircraft flew as it was too light and had the tank dipped again to confirm the right amount of fuel. Again a technician in a different city made the same error. Result the aircraft ran out of fuel prior to Winnipeg on its way to Edmonton. Final findings, technician use wrong formula to calculate fuel, new type of aircraft purchased with different type of dipstick. Over half the fuel missing for the flight, pilot's fault or not, be the judge. Rules have now changed and operational fuel guages needed prior to take off.

[Ivan Glisin]

now a bit of a reality check for some other people: please do not make statements about how the pilot should lose his license, and so on, flying is not like driving, and most of us (me included) barely have a vague idea what it means to be at the controls of an airline jet, with 100+ lives depending on your decisions.

Good point, as well as the rest of your comment. Due to a series of interesting events and opportunities I have accumulated solid knowledge on flying and aerodynamics and based on what I know I can not see any obvious pilot error. Watching the video step by step reveals a perfectly normal and controlled crosswind approach apparently well within A320 limits, until wind gust caught the right wind, increased lift asymmetrically and pushed the plane to the side at the same time. All followed by excellent pilot's reaction: note that it required coordinated operation of rudder, ailerons, elevator and changing throttle mode to TO/GA and all that all perfectly executed within 2-3 seconds only! Does not look like an untrained pilot to me.

And one important thing to remember most people do not know (related to flight dynamics): at the moment of touchdown the weight of the airplane and lift are almost balanced, small planes or large B747 or A380 does not matter. Technically what is really touching down is close to a paper plane (not literally, but very close). A bit of wind gust and whoops... off it goes. Two good "paper plane" examples:

Korean 747 Extreme Landing

Extreme landing at Lisbon