He Flew Thinking It Was An A320...
Hard Landing Not Reported
Airbus A321-211. Substantial damage. No injuries.
The copilot was undergoing his first two sectors of line training during flights between Manchester, England, and Ibiza, Spain, on July 18, 2008. The commander, a training captain, reviewed the copilot’s file before departing from Manchester and found that the copilot, who had received base training in the A320, was having difficulty landing the A321, said the report by the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).
During the flight, the commander briefed the copilot on the differences between landing the A321 and the A320, which is smaller and lighter. “The commander instructed the copilot that he would ‘talk him through’ the landing and specifically that he would instruct him to check the rate of descent with a nose-up sidestick input at 20 ft above touchdown,” the report said. The copilot had been taught to flare the A320 at 30 ft.
The copilot flared the A321 too late at Ibiza, and the landing was described as “firm.” The commander decided to fly the return leg to Manchester and transfer control to the copilot for the approach and landing.
The copilot conducted the approach to Manchester with the autopilot disengaged and the autothrottle engaged. “The commander gave a coaching narrative during the final moments before touchdown but, as the copilot closed the thrust levers, realized that the landing was ‘going to go wrong,’” the report said. “The aircraft touched down firmly and bounced. The commander stated that he considered taking control but noted that the copilot appeared to be holding the aircraft’s attitude and that intervention was not necessary.”
The copilot later told investigators that he had become confused by the commander’s coaching. The report noted that despite the commander’s perception of differences in landing technique, the procedure established for the A320 also is applicable to the A321.
After parking the aircraft on stand, the commander and copilot discussed the landing and agreed that it had not been a “hard” landing. However, the commander also asked company line engineers who had flown as passengers if they thought it had been a hard landing. “They replied that if no ‘load 15 report’ had been produced on the flight deck printer and the commander did not consider the landing to have been heavy, then in their opinion no action needed to be taken,” the report said.
A load 15 report is generated when certain parameters — including descent rate, vertical acceleration and gross weight — are exceeded on landing. A load 15 report and/or a commander’s report of a hard landing typically requires a follow-up engineering inspection for structural damage. Although a load 15 report had been generated after the landing in Manchester, the aircraft’s data management unit had not been programmed to automatically print the report. The commander was unaware that a load 15 report was available only by manual interrogation of the unit.
Two more flights were conducted in the A321 before the load 15 report was found during an unrelated engineering inspection of the landing gear. The report showed a vertical acceleration of 2.7 g during the touchdown at Manchester. Further examination of the aircraft revealed that the hard landing — categorized by engineers as “severe hard,” according to the report — had caused a crack in the forward lug of the left main landing gear support rib.