Several very heavy landings have occurred on Airbus A320/A321 aircraft and the airplane has gone flying again, (discussed elsewhere on PPRuNe). The maintenance people dealing with the pilot report (when made) did not know how to interrogate the ACARS/ACMS for the Load 15 Report for the SSFDR-recorded vertical acceleration parameter. These landings were in excess of 3g's and resulted in gear changes. In at least one case the airplane continued to fly for almost two weeks before being grounded after the FOQA data was read.
It all depends on the drivers and the the people in the office. Unfortunately often if if the pilot does not report a possible hard landing and no one is reading or flagging the ACARS report they can squeek by. We usually use ACARS to determine if it was not a hard landing, if it was the DFDR get's pulled and we start performing the inspection.
A little off topic here but this is a dangerous situation we see often in a PDIS. "encountered heavy/moderate turb, A/P #1 disengaged and the aircraft lost 600ft". The regular line maintenance only see's an autopilot problem. It is normal often for an a/p to kick off in turb, the threat is the turb sometimes get's overlooked by the avionics guy sent out to the plane. The proper procedure should be for the pilot to make 2 log entry's in the first place. As an A/V tech I have had to generate a 2nd log entry often to ensure the turbulence is addressed. Multiple problems should never be listed in a log entry anyways.