Originally Posted by
Dave Therhino
That's not how I remembered it, so I looked it up to be sure. The MD pilot was in the left seat and was flying the airplane when this event occurred. Report number NTSB-AAR-82-2, page 2. The 720 fpm sink rate in the final descent was as intended, but he was supposed to flare to an acceptable touchdown sink rate and apparently failed to initiate an aggressive enough pitch up to reduce the descent rate before touchdown.
Am I confusing the pilot part with the incident a couple months later when they spun the MD-80 off the runway (memory says they were doing a landing with some simulated hydraulic failure)? That one wouldn't have been so bad except that they brought in a crane to lift the aircraft back on the runway - but the crane broke and fell on the aircraft essentially cutting it in half
The MD-80 ended up being a good aircraft, but one could have been forgiven for believing the program was cursed during the flight test program
