A combination of a good jet in the hands of a good pilot beat a nasty wind gust. In the end, everyone was fine, but the jet required a few small repairs, including reattaching new buttons to all the occupied seats! ;-)
I'm glad I knew beforehand they'd survive; my heart was still in my throat as that plane came in sideways. He ran over some of the runway lights, too, before he was able to take off again.
Damn fine piloting!
(BTW, the AP video wouldn't work for me, but the Rooters one did fine. Had to turn the sound off, though, since I'm at work.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/03/2008 14:46 Comments ||
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#9
There is an old adage in aviation that goes something like this: "Any landing you can walk away from is a good one; if you can re-use the airplane, its a great one."
If technology existed that allowed runways to turn into the wind, that would make these type of events a memory.
Nope. Bad damn bad commander. Every plane comes with a detailed book telling between other things the wind speed limits on dry or wet track, front, rear or lateral wind, sustained or gutsy wind. The commander (he is the one who ever takes the strategic decisions even when copilot is piloting (1) ) should not have tried to land and gone to another airport. Period. If Lufthansa is half a serious company by this time he has already been fired.
(1) In order to avoid one of them losing their skills, pilot and copilot alternate at every travel and the other will manage communications with air controllers. But the pilot remains the
boss: he is the one responsible for decisions like
landing in another place and company regulations usually require he pilots himself when wind, visibility are beyond/below certain limits.
Nope. Bad damn bad commander. Every plane comes with a detailed book telling between other things the wind speed limits on dry or wet track, front, rear or lateral wind, sustained or gutsy wind. The commander (he is the one who ever takes the strategic decisions even when copilot is piloting (1) ) should not have tried to land and gone to another airport. Period. If Lufthansa is half a serious company by this time he has already been fired.
(1) In order to avoid one of them losing their skills, pilot and copilot alternate at every travel and the other will manage communications with air controllers. But the pilot remains the
boss: he is the one responsible for decisions like
landing in another place and company regulations usually require he pilots himself when wind, visibility are beyond/below certain limits.
#12
Yes, the pilot should have aborted, even going to another airport if required. He is responsible for 150 lives and a $50M airplane.
Posted by: ed ||
03/03/2008 16:26 Comments ||
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#13
Why weren't they flagged off and sent to a less windy airport?
Landing in crosswinds is done all the time, it's just that this time they got hit by a 150mph gust! Can't predict those yet.
Nimble, or anyone else who knows: Is the wheel angle on the landing gear fixed, or can they angle the wheels to account for the crosswind direction somehow? It seemed like in the video you linked that the wheels were angled.
Can you imagine the beautiful view the passengers have of the runway ahead whilst peering out the side windows? :-)
#16
This is insane. I do not know what the certified crosswind that this airbus was approved for, but from the crab the plane had on final, to the buffeting the plane took on touchdown, it was very large. Large crosswind component and large gusts. What were reported weather conditions at the time?
Most planes that I know of have fixed main gears. Planes like the B-52 have crabbing mains, as the wingspan is so long that any roll toward the upwind side to compensate for crosswind would result in a groundstrike.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/03/2008 17:01 Comments ||
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#17
Gorb,
I don't know for sure, but I believe the nose wheel is steerable to some extent but not for the purpose you are suggesting, only for low speed taxiing. But I think the landing carriages are not and that is why they do that testing down in Brazil at the world's crosswindiest runway (at a very remote location) to make sure that the tires and carriages can deal with the stresses of such landings.
Look at the quality of those landings, particularly the horizontal control versus today's landing and the skill of those test pilots is apparent. That pilot today was lucky not to lose the airplane. The lawyers will be busy tonight.
#18
Perhaps instead of runways they should just build a large flat expanse of pavement with a runway length diameter so no matter which direction the wind was coming they could land safely.
Yeah I know land is a premium but Germany has lots of farmland that could be converted. Think fo the children.
#20
I don't believe 150mph gust in Hamburg. A gust like that would have flattened buildings throughout the city and would have dominated news everywhere. Not to mention that most airplanes cannot stay on the ground with winds like that. A gust that high would have tossed airplanes around the airport like toys. Probably a 150 KPH (90mph) gust, still a lot of wind but more believable. B-52 landing gear is capable of dealing with 45° crosswind crab, but the airplane can't stay on the ground with winds in excess of 85 knots.
#21
IANAP (I am not a pilot), but as I understand it, the drill is to approach the runway crabbed - as the pilot was doing - and then at the last instant turn the plane into the direction of the runway. The landing is supposed to be a controlled stall, so you just "fall" onto the runway. Of course getting hit with a 150KPH/90MPH wind at the last second would still be a problem.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
03/03/2008 21:59 Comments ||
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#22
If you're set up on final in a jumbo and find you have a 40 degree crab, you don't try to set it down, you execute a missed approach. There is no way he was going to land that thing and he shouldn't have tried.
A MAN beheaded his 15-month-old nephew in front of his mother in a supermarket in Saudi Arabia apparently after a family dispute, newspapers reported.
The 25-year-old Syrian national picked up a knife from the store in the Red Sea city of Jeddah yesterday and decapitated the little boy in full view of shoppers, Arab News said.
The man apparently killed the little boy following a dispute with the man's sister and brother-in-law, the English-language daily said.
"He chopped off the boy's head in front of the mother to get back at her," a police officer was quoted as saying. The mother fainted and was taken to hospital.
Murder is punishable by death in ultra-conservative Muslim Saudi Arabia, where the death sentence is usually carried out by beheading.
#2
"Saudi Arabia, where the death sentence is usually carried out by beheading"
Fitting, in this loser's case.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/03/2008 22:28 Comments ||
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#3
Too bad (for the man, that is) that it wasn't a little girl he killed. That way he could have claimed that it was an honor killing ("the little slut was making eyes at my son"). So, he would have received the typical sentence for an honor killing - 2 hours, with time off for good behavior.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
03/03/2008 23:02 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
