A lot of folks have emailed me this video. I’ve watched it several times and have concluded it’s textbook wind shear with an immediate go-around. It looks a lot scarier than it actually is and the outcome definitely could have been different, but it happens a lot, just not captured dramatically like this video. Excellent response by the P1.
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Two words: HOWLY CRAP!
Next two words (I wish this blog could had a big text option): HOWLY CRAP!!!
Excellent response by the P1? I think the P1 was leaving for the toilet after landing that plane!
Most likely wind shear, but also might be strong cross wind. Notice that even at the beginning of the video you can see the pilot crabbing the plane into the wind. It seems to increase in strength as he approaches the runway.
I’m not sure about the exact definition of wind shear, but I thought that it usually includes a change in direction. This just seems to be a change in strength.
In either case, An amazing piece of video and airmanship.
I absolutely agree: An AMAZING piece of video and airmanship
Do you happen to know what airport this video was recorded at? It’s incredible!
It happened Saturday at HAM (Hamburg, Germany)…
It’s tough to criticize the landing/go around from only one choppy video, but from my viewpoint, the decision to go around was made too late. Passenger airliners are not made or stressed to touch down in a crab, and if the crosswinds require this, then either the crosswinds are out of limits, or the pilots require additional crosswind landing training. From the aviation forums, the reported crosswinds were gusting to 55 kts at the time of the attempted landing — well beyond the Airbus 320’s crosswind limits. Either way, the pilots should have aborted their landing well before the actual touchdown.
At most airlines, they have a “no fault” go-around policy. If the pilot chooses to go-around for any reason, he/she will not be second guessed by his/her boss.
Gerrit – thanks.
I agree with previous comments that the decision to go ’round was a little late. As you can see even before he crosses over the fence, he’s canted the plane pretty far off the main line the plane is following. How far can you slew off of your bearing like that? What’s the practical limit? I’m no pilot but if you get past 20 degrees off of the direction the plane is going, you have to wonder what happens when you touchdown and lose all your lift. You would want to full reverse thrust to keep from shooting off the side of the runway midways down once your straight line momentum kicked in. I will say he was awfully damned smooth all the way down though.
Now as I look at it a second time, did his left wing drag, because there’s a ton of stuff kicked up just as he’s about to touch down, then there’s a bunch of stuff kicked up by the engines when he gives up and goes full throttle to do the go ’round. His wings definitely tipped and dipped quite a bit in those few seconds.
I’m no pilot, but it seems like the pilot handled the situation good. Probably he should’ve decided to go ’round earlier, but once he had decided to give it a try it’s a good thing he managed to keep the plane whole.
I have to say that at Dublin airport planes often have to go in at similar angles. Not as radical as this one, of course, but I’ve gotten used to flying sideways and rough touchdowns.
The airbus even touched the runway with the left winglet. Check this incredible picture out: http://www.airliners.net/uf/536882887/middle/phpOltUWB.jpg
^^ What have i done, that i deserve it to be affronted like this???
As a Boeing pilot, here’s my take, although I’m sure you already know this, Adam…
Typically you fly the airplane in a “crab” and then straighten out in the last 10 to 50 feet while slightly lowering the upwind wing.
It looks like the pilot was initially drifting into the wind, or right of the centerline, and then put in a lot of left rudder to straighten out the touchdown which, without lowering the right wing led them to drift off to the left. Had he touched down a bit earlier, he wouldn’t have drifted. Good recovery, though.
Probably more important than skill in these situations, is judgement. It’s best to fly with a pilot who isn’t afraid of saying, “Forget it. We’re going to our alternate airport.” That’s what makes a good pilot.
Our airline has a ‘no fault’ go around policy designed to encourage pilots to go around at the first sign that something doesn’t look right. Most Boeings have a 30 knot crosswind limitation. I’m sure the A320 is similar.
Do you know your limits, Adam? It’s best to have a number in your mind before you get into this kind of situation. (Hint: It better not be 30 knots in a 182RG)
Love the new format and sound, Adam!
I agree with Kent. And believe it or not, the 182RG crosswind component is 28 knots. Looking at the crab angle I’m guesstimating the A320 had about it’s limit if the gusts were indeed the reported 55knts.
Wow. 55 knots. We don’t even land with HEADWINDS over 50 knots.
Here’s an interesting Airbus fact (except the A300/A310): The sticks aren’t interconnected. In other words, the captain had no way of getting an idea what forces were gusts and what were from the co-pilots inputs. That could have made all the difference in the go-around decision.
I’m a bit surprised the demonstrated crosswind limit is 28 knots on the 182. I guess my point is to understand your personal limits as well as the airplane’s.
I’m in recurrent training right now and everyone in the class had a chuckle at how the airline and the media is trying to spin these pilots as ‘heroes.’ Not one of the six of us could figure that one out.
Adam, didn’t you point out that the media likes to prop ‘em up high before knocking them down? Get ready for the big knock down for these pilots when the data comes out, unfortunately.
Adam,
I won’t second guess, but just discuss some of the other comments… I am a Boeing pilot. There isn’t a “limitation” on my plane, just a “max demonstrated” crosswind. So, we are given some room for judgment, but I better have a pretty good reason to go beyond the crosswinds ever demonstrated by the test pilots.
Before I flew airliners, I would always land wing low with 0 crab – the nose pointing right down the runway. The Boeing I fly now has low slung engines which I worry about dragging if I’m too wing low. In contrast to another commenter, my Boeing plane is able to land in a crab. In low crosswinds, I land wing low with 0 crab. At higher crosswinds, I land wing low with some crab to keep from getting too wing low.
Here is a video of a Boeing landing fully crabbed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljOxo0s33sI&feature=related
Transitioning from a crab to wing low requires both aileron and rudder. If you just try to straighten the nose with the rudder, you accelerate the upwind wing which can lead to a roll away from the wind. In my plane, if I’m holding rudder in, I have to hold a commensurate amount of aileron in also. For me, I’ve found that the ground effect and air compression under that low wing requires extra effort to keep that low wing down.
Let the discussion continue…
Good clarification Robin and excellent description of how to do it right. I couldn’t have written it better.
Our Ops Specs say “The maximum demonstrated crosswinds are not AFM limita-
tions. However, a component at or near these values with higher
gusts should be considered operationally unacceptable.”
Each airline has essentially different rules in this regard. But the first question at a hearing is probably going to be “why did you consider landing in a crosswind that was greater than the max demonstrated?” As they say, your hearing gets better at a hearing.
Not only that, this demonstrated crosswind limit was surely determined on a dry runway. The wet runway was another factor that needed to be taken into consideration by the LH pilots.
Robin & Kent, I’m so glad you guys are here keeping the conversation rolling. FYI my 28knt crosswind component on the 182RG, this is set based upon what my rudder can actually handle. Above that and it’s just too small
I must say I’m delighted to hear Robin does a combo of wing low and crab. I’m more a crab guy myself, but admittedly have had a bounce on occasion due to accelerating my in-wind wing when swinging it in.
Nice to know we all have the same problem with our equipment, regardless of size
Wow that youtube video is amazing! Tell me this: from the video it appears in those situation landing gear gets twisted sideways to permit landing in crab-mode. Is it right? Do all airplanes have that possibility?
I remember I read somewhere that this manouver is called “side-slip”, twisting the rudder one side and the stick the other side. Am I right?
It seems that the pilots were informed of the bad weather conditions over the runway, but they chose no to go to the alternate, which had better conditions during the ‘Emma’ storm. The landing was actually performed by the co-pilot, a woman that has been identified as Maxi J.
The situation is actually being investigated by German authorities to determine why the alternate wasn’t used in the first place.
http://tinyurl.com/2clgdn (link is in Spanish).
I am no pilot. But being from from Germany, I want to share some news with you. According to the Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung (federal authority for investigation of aviation accidents) in Braunschweig the pilots in question were not that good…
Several things: the chief pilot (male, 39 years old) did not fly the airplane, when the incident happened. His 24 year old female co-pilot was flying the plane. Only when the airplane almost crashed (one wing DID touch the ground), he took over and went around and saved the plane with his intervention.
The Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung is investigating, why the 39 years old pilot did let his 24 year old co-pilot try the landing under such a heavy storm (Emma is the storm’s name).
This is from an AFP report. Original source was the German tabloid BILD: http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/vermischtes/2008/03/04/pilotin/hat-in-hamburg-flugzeug-bei-orkan-landung,geo=3926766.html
The BILD is of course only a shitty thing full of garbage, but they seem to be right on this one. Otherwise, the Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung would not have confirmed the report.
“The Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung is investigating, why the 39 years old pilot did let his 24 year old co-pilot try the landing under such a heavy storm (Emma is the storm’s name).”
You know I don’t know what the SOP is for letting the inexperience junior officer ‘learn’ but shouldn’t stuff like this be limited to the simulator, and only done if absolutely necessary in real life? I think as the junior officer once I crossed over the fence, I would have said, “This isn’t going well let’s go ’round” and then scheduled time on the simulator for these conditions and gotten my confidence level up. It seems now with the details coming out it was a lapse of judgment that led to the decision to go all the way to full touch and go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Fairchild_Air_Force_Base_B-52_crash
This may or may not apply but corrective action is the best defense against future risk taking.
The B-52 crash can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReSm7r45_ds
Franco: the side-slip is actually the ‘one wing low’ method explained by Robin.
I’m usually the first one to say, “let’s wait for the report.” But it’s just so tempting to second guess when there’s such a clear video involved.
I’m most impressed with a pilot who has the judgement to divert to the alternate. I still haven’t heard a definitive report of the winds at the time the pilots began the approach.
It’s customary to swap legs between the captain and the co-pilot. Some airlines have restrictions on when it should be a captain only landing, but we don’t have anything at our company that restricts copilots from making the landing, as long as it’s below the 29 to 38 knot maximum (depending on which airplane).
To add yet another point, the quick left rudder application may have been what helped raise the right wing. Swept wing airplanes can roll with quick rudder inputs, which, as Robin says, is why it takes a good deal of opposite aileron to keep it at least level or slightly wing low.
We can’t get too carried away about getting a wing low as we’ll scrape an engine. The A320 would have scraped the engine if they had been at a normal height for all this to take place. But they were actually pretty far off the ground when it rolled left, and that’s why they touched the wingtip.
Now, off to listen to today’s DSC…
I guess that Kent and I will have to respectfully disagree about the landing in a crab point. Neither my Boeing 757/767 flight handbook, nor my MD-80 book allows it. The gear side loads would also tend to lift up the upwind wing. I certainly would be interested in reading the applicable paragraphs from his book, however, if he could email them to me flyingpilot@gmail.com.
Some airlines will put a landing crosswind limitation on new first officers/copilots — typically 15kts until a specified number of hours in type are reached.
Now that that’s said, I finally found out the real “naked truth”behind the incident….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rbZg_Y3AgY
Oops, sorry, it was Robin, not Kent who I disagreed with.
Len,
I have to say you had me worried there. I wrote my previous post without referencing my manuals. Now, I’m glad I did go find it. To keep my company and copyrights out of this, I’ll paraphrase what what my Flight Crew Training Manual says for the 757/767-300-400… It lists three techniques for crosswind landings:
-De-Crab During Flare
-Touchdown In Crab
-Sideslip (Wing Low)
The “Touchdown in Crab” section specifically says that the airplanes can land using zero sideslip (crab only) up to the landing crosswind guideline speeds.
A few years ago, my company switched to the “Boeing” books which includes Vol. 1 (Operations Manual), Vol 2 (Systems Manual), and a Flight Crew Training Manual. Before the switch, our “books” were written in-house and approved by the FAA. I don’t know if your books are written “in-house” or are the “Boeing” books.
tailwinds, Robin
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