Jumbo Jet Drifting

[GuyJean]

NJR, but damn impressive..

German Jet Almost Crashes
http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=77355

GJ

[Tsuru]

Does that link have the after picture? They basically broke a piece off the lower part of the left winglet with that stunt... not a lot of damage at all when you look at the video. A very lucky escape indeed.

(I'm typing this from a Brussels hotelroom with a fiddly wireless keyboard on a TV internet terminal... 200 times more brilliant than anything else I've come across in hotelrooms but still not as articulate as from home)

[dimwit]

My guess is that the investigation will question what the pilot was doing trying to land a plane under such extreme weather conditions. Sounds like a case of 'getthereitis'.

[GuyJean]

My guess is that the investigation will question what the pilot was doing trying to land a plane under such extreme weather conditions. Sounds like a case of 'getthereitis'.

They said it was a freak gust of wind; He circled around and landed at the same airport 10 minutes later. That must've been fun for the passengers..

GJ

[kamome]

My guess is that the investigation will question what the pilot was doing trying to land a plane under such extreme weather conditions. Sounds like a case of 'getthereitis'.

If anything, the decision to clear the pilot for landing by the control tower would be the focus of the investigation, shouldn't it? I would think that the pilot would not have landed unless he was instructed to do so by the tower.

[Charles]

A "friend" sent me a link to that video last night, just before I flew back from Florida on an Airbus A320. I didn't get much sleep that night. My flight landed in a stiff crosswind (maybe 25mph) yow!
Then I got to the smoking area and that damn video is playing on all the monitors. I felt like that scene in the movie "Airplane" where they're watching an in-flight movie of plane crashes.

[kurohinge1]

In fairness, the internet seems to be full of videos from plane-spotters showing planes approaching at angles in high winds and then straightening up as they touch down, but this video also seems to show a sudden force hit the jet at that very point - consistent with a freak gust or, alternatively, a sudden lull.

So, I suspect it was just a case of unlucky timing at a crucial point, but luckily the pilot's skills were up to the challenge. A reminder that it's not all smooth sailing up there.

Well done to the pilot, I say.

[Greji]

Well done to the pilot, I say.

Agreed. Ground swells will wear you out, either coming in, or rotating. He did a helluva job to keep from touching down on the roof, which will definitely ruin your day.

[Tsuru]

My guess is that the investigation will question what the pilot was doing trying to land a plane under such extreme weather conditions. Sounds like a case of 'getthereitis'.

Crosswinds were within demonstrated limits for the A320, the flight was just unlucky to get one wing picked up by a freak gust of wind near the ground. I've experienced crosswind landings on similar jets but with tail mounted engines (=more difficult as the CG is further back) in tougher higher crosswinds than this... granted, these were flown by highly experienced test pilots with gazillions of hours on type, but your statement that the pilot was exceeding the plane's limits or his own is quite simply not true. Improper technique by the pilot flying by not using enough bank when decrabbing, maybe. But that remains to be seen.



Everybody walked away and the airplane only got bent a little. This is why the boys up front earn the big bucks (well, the captain anyway).

[Greji]

Improper technique by the pilot flying by not using enough bank when decrabbing, maybe. But that remains to be seen..

I think they would still have trouble faulting him on that (not that they won't try). If you look at the crab he was forced into and then to be hit with that freak gust right above the deck, none of the "book" techniques could have been applied in time. They should be just happy with the fact that he got in down.

[dimwit]

Watching the accident, one is left to wonder why they chose to land in such conditions which leads on to either one of two conclusions;

1) Hamburg Airport has unadequete wind monitoring equipment, or

2) the pilot made a decision to attempt a landing in conditions which he should not have.

The comment in the video states that the winds where 155 mph which are way above safe landing conditions.

It looks a lot like a situation I remember a couple of years ago, an Air France jet decided to try a landing in Toronto in an extremely violent thunderstorm and run off the runway, fortunately not killing anyone.

[Tsuru]

You're sure the 155mph wasn't the speed of the aircraft itself?

[Charles]

You're sure the 155mph wasn't the speed of the aircraft itself?

I poked around some pilot discussion of this incident, from what I read, there were reports of 150mph winds elsewhere in Germany during this storm. Apparently that report got incorporated into the incident itself. The pilots all judged the gust that hit the aircraft to be about 50mph max, and they weren't too sure about that. But they were sure that if it was 150mph, the pilot could not have recovered.
The most interesting thing I read was that it takes 3 or 4 seconds to get the A320's jet engines from landing speed back up to takeoff power, so they wondered, just when the hell did the pilot decide to abort?

[Tsuru]

You have to know that the junior FO was at the controls at the time (poor judgement on the part of the captain for sure), and that in the A320 near the ground in FBW direct law the positions of both sidesticks are taken into account when computing the desired pitch and roll rates (as opposed to only the one of the pilot flying), making the re-establishment of control on the part of the captain an interesting affair. It's a bit different from a Boeing or Cessna where the controls of the aircraft on both side are linked mechanically and you can shout to your junior FO to take his hands off the wheel and his feet off the pedals ("my controls") and grab the aicraft by the scruff of the neck to bring it back under control. I don't think that this departure from convention in the design of FBW Airbus aircraft has helped the safety of the aircraft one bit in unexpected situations, and if anything it has put aircraft, crew and passengers into several dangerous (and well-documented) situations in the past, and probably will continue to do so in the future.

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over aircraft engines taking several seconds spinning up to takeoff thrust... each one has two or three large rotating masses weighing in at nearly a thousand pounds, so that's what they do. Bigger aircraft engines (747, 767) have the equivalent of a family saloon spinning around at several thousand RPM in each engine, and the rotating mass of the A380 and 777 engines is again twice this size. Inertia and all...

[Charles]

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over aircraft engines taking several seconds spinning up to takeoff thrust... each one has two or three large rotating masses weighing in at nearly a thousand pounds, so that's what they do. Bigger aircraft engines (747, 767) have the equivalent of a family saloon spinning around at several thousand RPM in each engine, and the rotating mass of the A380 and 777 engines is again twice this size. Inertia and all...

Interesting about the crosslinked pilot/copilot sticks, I didn't know.
The thing about inertia is, when your wing is dragging, you need thrust NOW, not in 2 or 3 seconds. That's what puzzled the pilots, he seemed to have the thrust when he needed it, maybe he aborted and powered up just before the gust.

Now what I really want to know is, why someone was out on the end of the runway with a video camera in the first place. Was the weather bad enough that he was hoping to tape a crash?

[Tsuru]

Interesting about the crosslinked pilot/copilot sticks, I didn't know.
The thing about inertia is, when your wing is dragging, you need thrust NOW, not in 2 or 3 seconds. That's what puzzled the pilots, he seemed to have the thrust when he needed it, maybe he aborted and powered up just before the gust.

I would be very surprised if it turns out the engines were really that slow off the mark... on landing the jet engines on most aircraft aren't rolled back all the way to ground idle for this very reason. If you need to go around you need power that very second, not in four seconds... I do know from aircraft with the very same engines (737) that if you slam the throttles on approach, you have power available almost immediately (< 1 sec). This is because the situation is very different than on takeoff as the forward motion of the aircraft means the engines get air pushed in the intake practically for free and don't need to get their sucking action up to speed first, the engines are already spinning at flight idle minimum (~50% RPM on the outer shaft with the bleed air and fuel systems braced to deliver go-around thrust ASAP, versus ~20% RPM and lean fuel flow for ground idle), so all FADEC needs to do when the throttles are slammed forward is close the rings of valves that bleed air from the compressor to stop the engines from accelerating in these conditions, push as much fuel in as the engine can handle, and off you go. Hardly any need to wait for your family saloon to spin up.

Now what I really want to know is, why someone was out on the end of the runway with a video camera in the first place. Was the weather bad enough that he was hoping to tape a crash?

Have you been to Europe?

[Charles]

I would be very surprised if it turns out the engines were really that slow off the mark... on landing the jet engines on most aircraft aren't rolled back all the way to ground idle for this very reason. If you need to go around you need power that very second, not in four seconds...

...Have you been to Europe?

Actually no. I don't know what you mean. What, do you have planespotters at the end of every runway?

The 1 sec powerup makes sense, he seems to have power just after he regained a bit of control. I can't imagine what it's like for a pilot to have to struggle for control and have to manage the powerup too. This really is doing calculus in your head, realtime.

[Mulboyne]

...What, do you have planespotters at the end of every runway?

Not everyone understands the hobby.

[Tsuru]

Actually no. I don't know what you mean. What, do you have planespotters at the end of every runway?

The 1 sec powerup makes sense, he seems to have power just after he regained a bit of control. I can't imagine what it's like for a pilot to have to struggle for control and have to manage the powerup too. This really is doing calculus in your head, realtime.

It actually isn't. This kind of thing is rehearsed so many times during training performing a real, actual go-around when the proverbial shit hits the ventilator is almost down to pure instinct for pilots. And of course the computers help too to work out the details such as giving enough pitch-up to get off the ground, but not so much that you scrape the tail. And to get as much thrust from the engines as is available, but not so much that they surge.

Plane spotting is a very popular hobby in most West-European countries.. When I was a young kid I loved going out to an airport to watch the planes. Nowadays I work quite near AMS and occasionally when the weather allows I take my lunch with me in the car and drive down to the nearest runway when it's in use. And I'm not exactly the only one