A320 how to save this landing

[Chris Scott]

Hi again, IFLY INDIGO,

Some of the recent responses seem to me to be a bit alarmist.

However, if your airline had a SESMA programme − or equivalent − in which certain events (where one or more QAR parameters are outside normal limits) automatically trigger a report, and the crew concerned are contacted confidentially by the SESMA representative; the “Pitch” auto-call would undoubtedly result in you hearing from him or her in a week or two. He/she would be at your disposal to discuss the flight-recorder traces. Later, the event would be added to a database to analyse possible trends in pilot handling on your fleet. If it was considered sufficiently important as an example, a summary would be published in-house, again with the flight date and crew names omitted.

You say the “controls were sluggish”, but you are unable to say if the IAS was above or below VLS. The “Pitch” call suggests that, having started the flare late, you over-flared. In that case, it was not the CONTROLS that were sluggish, but the wing itself, which was unable to generate enough lift to arrest the ROD in the short time you seem to have given it. This may have been partly due to a lack of airspeed.

But closing the throttles would also have robbed you of a useful vertical component of thrust (as well as putting you in a position where a go-around from a severe bounce would have been hampered by a lack of thrust for several seconds, at least).

You write: “I feel g load could have been lesser if I had relaxed the pitch up demand, after finding no response intially. I dug the main wheels with constant demand.”

Yes, definitely you should have relaxed it. It seems you were already at a pitch attitude higher than desirable if you had been initiating a go-around from a rejected landing. I don’t have that procedure to hand, but recommend you look for it in your FCOM or, if necessary, elsewhere.

In answer to your other question, “what could have been done to reduce the g load on touchdown”, it is also true that − if the nose is high − a small, brief, forward movement of the stick, just before main-wheels touchdown, can reduce their impact. But it is vital not to overdo it, and the pitch-down rate must be arrested with some back-stick as soon as the main-wheels touch down, to stop the nose-wheels thumping down. This is not a technique, however, that I would recommend to anyone in your scenario.

To summarise.
If you don’t like the look of it at any stage, go around. (Be prepared for possible main-wheels contact with the runway.)
But once the throttles have been closed, this may not be possible.
So never close the throttles until a safe landing is assured.

Get as much value as you can from this experience.

Chris