Horror-Landing at Hamburg Airport

[Pat Buckley]

Given the seeming quickness of the response to a go around, I wonder if the decision to go around hadn't been made a second or two before the wing scraped?

[Marcus]

Pat,

amongst others, the issues you raised are stuff for discussions among pilots themselves,
very interesting thread and many details under

LH A320 Rough Landing @ Hamburg - PPRuNe Forums

[Marcus]

BTW...take a look at the spectacular picture at the beginning of page 1 and page 3 of that above thread. Detail picture of broken wingtip on page 5.

[Marcus]

According to the latest German tabloids (them referring to the Federal German Aviation Office) the 24-year old FO was entrusted with the landing.

Die schöne Co-Pilotin (24) steuerte den Airbus - Bild.de

[Jack]

Marcus that was great tread, thanks! My question is if this pilot knew that winds were gusting past the max crosswind coefficient and you have AT least 45 minutes of fuel on board then why not divert to another airport? Again excess testosterone level, unless someone can tell me that the pilot is no longer in command. In this case he was very lucky, perhaps next time a different decision.

[David Morton]

There is often a big difference between Forecast weather shown on the METARS (actual 1/2 hourly reports) The TAFs (Terminal Air Forecasts) and the prevailing conditions. A good example would be Jersey in the Channel Islands here in the U.K. where they advertise Fog below limits and cross winds out of limits for days on end, but life at the airport continues unabated and the commercial flights are largely unaffected. The prevailing conditions are the ones that count, especially in the subsequent accident reports when a snapshot of the conditions is taken.
As usual, the press only latch on to the extremes and never let the truth get in the way of their story - good or bad.

[Marcus]

David,

I think we know what to make out of press reports, particularly when it comes to "Bild" being the German equivalent of the "Sun".

Apart from that, if it turns out to be true that the FO did the landing (this perhaps even including the touch and go) she did a very good job, wouldn´t you agree?

Best,
Marcus

[David Morton]

Marcus,
I hope that she is fireproof. This will go with her until she retires. Lets hope the two crew don't go from hero to zero - as the bild and sun can do that just for the sake of readership. (Does anyone read those papers anyway?)

[John Fitzpatrick]

An almost identical situation happened in 1999 on AA Flight 1420 with a not-so-happy ending.
A Black Box video animation is here:
YouTube - Animation of American Airlines Flt 1420 accident
You can see the trouble he has trying to flare in a crosswind.

[Peter D]

This is how the test pilots do it.

I think it might have something to do with moving the CoG forward - big balls in the cockpit !!

YouTube - Crosswind Landing Testing

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

[Mike]

I agree with the general perception that the "go around' decision should have been made earlier, the first time the airplane skipped to the left (regardless of who was flying the airplane at the moment, it's still the left seat's call. He's the guy who buys the accident). Having said that, as David suggested, it's possible that the 'tower' winds may have been considerably different than the winds at the approach end, and may have been within published aircraft limits (which are listed as "demonstrated"). In Fifi (A-319/320) it's 39 knots crosswind component; there are no 'total wind' limits. Different airports have very different wind reporting abilities.

On the cross control/dihedral effect comment, contrary to 'normal' aircraft, I am told by my good friend and Airbus captain that Fifi does NOT use opposite aileron to counter rudder. The electrics in the airplane are supposed to compensate, requiring no pilot input...I'm not sure I buy all of that, but I'm not Airbus qualified (Boeings primarily, with one sojurn to the DC-10).

In general, the video is not complimentary to commercial aviation, IMHO.

[David Morton]

Quite right Mike - I don't buy that either and talking to a bus driver here, he doesn't 'quite' buy it either. However he commented that straightening up on rudder like this might hit the stops when trying to keep it level.
Boeing 'floats my boat' every time.

[Doug Clark]

My first job out of Uni was at BAE Kingston. I was assigned to the A321 wing project as part of the flap mechanism team.
I was very fortunate to have for a section lead the (English chap) who I believe lead the design team for the double deck park of the 747.
about a decade later I got my first opportunity to fly on "my" plane (between Monteal & Toronto) and it was a great pleasure, and I great deal of trouble keeping my mouth shut about this being "my" plane.

My points are:

1. Knowing some of the guys who Design and Engineer for for Airbus, all of them that I worked with were great professionals from which I learned an enormous amount, and I'll never have a problem with getting on any of their aircraft.

2. The global mobility of the Design & Engineering workforce across all industries and the subcontracting of manufacturing means now that its increasingly difficult to say who actually made what and where anymore.

[I LOVE GT40- Paolo]

ok...after reding all this thread I deceided to loose some minutes looking it for real.
The road that takes me home everyday is viale Ungheria, a street running 20 meters parallel to linate track (milano) and at the end there is a BIG square where planes nut as me can stop a little and look planes landing.

Maybe I am wrong but I have seen MANY many planes approaching that way, exaclty that way.
The difference is that what I've seen with my eyes...a little before planes touch with tyres..seems he returns correct in a while.
The first plane I've seen approaching had a very high degrees difference (dunno if I explain well..sorry) but the final part of landing becomed perfectly anyway.
And always with high wind.

And this happened to 8 planes of the 10 I have looked landing (in Linate there is a difference of more or less 1 minute from a plane to another landing at 20 pm..),so I think now probably there have been some other mistake (control mistake) during the approach of the plane.

The planes I've seen were all Airbus, md-80s, 737s....

[David Morton]

approaching had a very high degrees difference = Drift

No difference -no drift - no crosswind.


Paolo - it's quite unusual for the wind to blow directly along the axis of the runway (piste)so the trick is to set up a general compass heading that will allow the aeroplane to make good a track that agrees (is the same as ) with the Runway.
It's even better if the track made good that you are flying arrives at the threshold of the runway you intend to land on (sic)and the trick is then to either (i) remove the drift and keep the wings level (which was the intent of the pilots in this aeroplane we are talking about) or (ii) land the aeroplane and let it sort it's self out (Boeing pilots often do this) or (iii) a combination of both (often called a 'wing down' technique) or (iv) fly a B52. Earl may step and and describe how that works so I won't elaborate on that amazing aeroplane.

PS - if you see someone with a laser beam outside the perimeter in Linate
and pointing it at the flight decks of the aeroplanes, get his name and address or number plate of his car. I want to get that bastard. I am presuming it's not you........

[I LOVE GT40- Paolo]

jaaaaa Dave..I've seen such assholds too sometimes ja.
Was a too stupid use also many kids have there.....italian firends pilots report the same.
Unfortunately there is never police in that point..its just people stupidity.

No, its not me, the only thing I do is salute planes with flashing lights of my car when they approach and low altitude.....in the hope they see me, but dont think it is a disturb )