Airliner almost buys it BIG time

[dsinclair]

Not sure how long this link will be up - but this airliner landing in a crosswind in Hamburg - was as close as I can imagine to buying the farm.

Heavy crosswind - wingtip scrape - then an abort. If this one doesn't tighten your gut - you are dead.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/03/03/germany.plane/index.html

[Simpleton]

The story continues, "....and the pilot was taken to the hospital where the seat cushion was removed after being sucked up his butt..."

[bobzilla]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HAMBURG, GERMANY - 3/3/2008
Luththansa announced today all Airbus A320 that have regularly scheduded flight into Hamburg, Germany will be retrofited with retractable training wheels on the wings. Also, additional crew training will commence to insure each pilot will be able to touch each training wheel while landing in crosswinds exceeding 30 knots.

[bodywerks]

I don't know, While I am not a full-scale pilot, I am an aircraft mechanic, which affords me the opportunity to fly jumpseat on airliners. In my flightdeck observations, even a normal landing involves a lot of stick/rudder movement once the plane gets into ground effects. When you are in a heavy crosswind like that, you have to hit left rudder at precisely the moment when the mains are about to touch ground, so that the plane is pointing straight down the runway while also keeping the right wing down at just the right angle to avoid blowing over. Otherwise, you could do some serious damage to the wheels and main landing gear. By the video, it looks like the pilot did just that, but couldn't keep the right wing down and caught a gust (it also looked like the wind gust increased right at touchdown).
Maybe with some of the best pilots in the world, that plane might have been kept down, but I commend the pilots for avoiding a serious catastrophe and, in my opinion, they did a darn good job of saving it.

[ben_beyer]

I was working on a private pilots license in the past and I'm with bodywerks on this one. Looks like he was doing it properly and then a gust caught him.

[Xpress..]

I saw this one before. It's incredible that the pilot didn't flip that bird.

[BOSSIER_ROB]

I've landed a cessna 152 and a 172 in some stiff crosswinds. One was questionably at the maximun crosswind allowable to get the 152 down safely and that was nerve racking. This guy had brass balls to try that one. That's almost impossible to put that big dude down in that kind of crosswind. I'd say he did a decent job not tearing the wing off.

[rgrant89]

The pilot in this case waited too long to engage opposite rudder in order to line up the a/c with the runway, when you are near or are at the max crosswind component for the a/c you always kick in that rudder to make sure you are able to hold the line on the runway. I did not see a whole bunch of left rudder at all on the approach to straighten the a/c for landing. I have taught several thousands hours of crosswind landings(we rarely had a day with out a cross wind, only one runway). It is obvious that that in this case the runway should have been changed by the tower before the approach was initiated. Major airports have crosswind runways. This is a case of pilot error!

[pitviper51]

after hearing the part about later landed on a nother runway that was into the wind.. why not do that from the get go... i had many landing like that on windy days flying sailplanes, and its very tense at times. tho having the center main gear makes it easier to fight the wind once onthe ground
mike

[Rush7]

Pilot looked like he made a good save. All I can say is that if I had of been on that flight I am pretty sure that I would have messed in my pants.

[bodywerks]

	Quote:
	I did not see a whole bunch of left rudder at all on the approach to straighten the a/c for landing.

I agree that there was an error on the pilot's side, but he/she still saved it in the end and lived to learn from his/her mistake...

[klhoard]

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At a minimum I think he's bought himself a trip to the sim and some retraining from the friendly folks known as "Standards". . .
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Any other commercial pilot on this board knows what I'm talking about. . .
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