Trainee pilot lands plane without wheel

[Pilot.Lyons]

Wow.... Maybe thats why it could take 120+ hours to train in those conditions

[VH-Cheer Up]

Wow.... Maybe thats why it could take 120+ hours to train in those conditions

He was a China Southern Airline cadet, I would imagine he would have completed his PPL and be well established in the CPL syllabus at 120 hours.

Airlines often choose Australia for pilot training because we can fly almost every day with much less than eight oktas of clag obscuring the horizon.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

the instructor looked at me as we were climbing at 500 feet per second on final in approach config

That would be the Saturn V PA28, on steroids, then??

120 hours is not skygod but it's not beginner experience, either. Stop making excuses for him. That landing was bad in every aspect from short final onwards.

No, it wasn't bad.... it was APPALLING!

NO attempt to hold off.

Far too much power (it should have been at idle in the non-existant hold off).

Flat attitude on touch down, with no attempt to minimise ground speed.

NO attempt to hold up the wheel-less wing.

Stomped on the brakes and held them on even as the aeroplane departed the runway (due heavy one-wheel braking!) and did a 180 onto the grass putting loads of strain onto the RH u/c/ leg!

The feckin power on hard even after he'd stopped!

My cat could not have done it worse!

[A and C]

SSD

I totaly agree, with four hours to think about it you would have thought he would have had a better plan than that.

[Good Business Sense]

Shaggy Sheep Driver aka Chuck Yeager

Wow, you must be really something in a cockpit... read your comments on engine out in a Caravan recently, ....I'm learning quite a bit here from you ......quick question how many engine failures have you had? How many times have you landed with one wheel having fallen off your aeroplane ?

[VH-Cheer Up]

the instructor looked at me as we were climbing at 500 feet per second on final in approach config

That would be the Saturn V PA28, on steroids, then??

Yes, well spotted typo, that's obviously the hallmark of a really good pilot.

[Contacttower]

Far too much power (it should have been at idle in the non-existant hold off).

I agree it does look from the engine (the sound in the background is a helicopter so nothing to do with his power setting) like he has a bit of power on. But judging by the flare...which was there, but just too high, would suggest he was actually at or close to idle. With hardly any fuel in the tanks and any significant power a PA28 (Cherokee/Warrior at least, not the heavier ones) will just float and float even if you come in at 60-65 over the fence and is difficult to slam on like that.

With a long runway (no idea how long the runway was in this case...) it could be advantageous to keep power on though...would have given more control authority to keep the wing with the missing wheel off the ground.

Might also have been a idea to cut the engine once full contact with the runway had been made...just in case another wheel had collapsed and brought the prop into contact with the ground.

I don't think there is anything wrong with passing comment on these videos...no point in just saying "oh what a rubbish landing" but thinking about and illustrating what a pilot may have done better in an emergency situation is constructive to the forum and the general debate on here. One day someone might just remember something they read on PPRuNe...it might just improve their flying or help them out in a difficult spot.

[Contacttower]

Actually having looked at a slighty higher res video of the incident I think he did a bit better than I initially thought. Yes the touchdown was quite firm but if you look carefully he actually manages to hold the landing gear strut off the runway for most of the landing role on the hard, only letter it drop once on the grass. The braking does seem quite severe but could have been a deliberate attempt to get onto the grass quickly so the strut wouldn't scrape on the runway.

[BackPacker]

In a situation like this, would you aim for the grass or the hard runway for the final bit of your landing "roll"?

The grass will obviously cause less damage to the wingtip, but if the wingtip digs into the grass (instead of sliding over it) it may put severe strain on the spar in just the wrong direction (horizontal instead of vertical). And if the aircraft yaws through 90 degrees, you are also putting a severe sideways load on the remaining wheel and wheel attachment, which may cause damage there as well.

Obviously being able to walk away is priority number 1, but if you do have time to think about priority 2 (limiting further damage to the airplane)...?

NO attempt to hold off.

I wonder if this was maybe done deliberately. Not just because of the thermal conditions that have been commented on earlier, but because of something else as well. If you do a lowest-speed-possible, fully held-off landing it is relatively hard to 'grease' it on. With just a tad more speed and power, a greaser is easier.

If you happen not to grease it on (and we all know we don't grease it on all the time) and you have one wheel missing, you might not be quick enough, or not have enough aileron authority at low speed, to pick up the wing where the wheel is missing. By keeping a tad more speed and power on, it's easier to pick up the wing with the ailerons and bring things into a stable situation, before you pull the power and try to keep the aircraft under control for as long as you can with aerodynamics only.

One other thing I noted when looking at the video, and which has not been commented on before, is the way the door opened automatically when the aircraft yawed to the left. He clearly made good use of that four hours and remembered to unlatch the door before touching down.

[jas24zzk]

Can't help myself!

I totaly agree, with four hours to think about it you would have thought he would have had a better plan than that.

You're right. he had 4 hours to think about what could possibly go wrong

SSD is quite nicely critical of the successful efforts of a low time pilot to save his own ass. I don't know the philosophy in mother england, but over here, once it turns to crap like that, who cares! The insurer owns it, all you gotta do is make sure you can stagger to the pub.

SSD You clearly have a somewhat limited knowledge of human factors, and how they may affect a persons performance in a time of critical need.

Lets have a look at that in some detail shall we.

1. Initial Bodily reactions.
The emergency raises blood pressure, heart rate, energy consumption and stress. This will happen in any emergency regardless of your experience. However experience may reduce the extent of the reaction.

With this reaction the body produces a lot of heat, which the body tries to lower via sweating....i.e it starts dumping fluid. This is an important point for you to recall later.

2. Environment.
On the day in question, the temperature in the area ranged from 42 - 45 degrees centigrade, (107 - 113 Farenheit) at ground level. ( i should know, i was only 40 nm away on the day)
Now if we consider that he would have stayed local, and probably about 2000' agl and applied the ELR to the eqaution and round it up to 2 deg per thousand, the lowest ambient temperature you'd see is 38c (100.4 F)
It was a cloudless day, if the the ambient temperature isn't enough, the aussie sun will roast you! I know of englishmen that have come here and not lasted 30 minutes in the aussie sun. Leeson 1..how to spot an englishman...look for the lobster walking down the road.
Actually thinking about it...does your thermometer even go that high?

3. Flight plan.
This one is a bit of an unknown, as no-one has commented on it.
I doubt with the conditions of the day, a long flight was not planned for, probably 30-60 minutes local/circuits. You body/mind will tolerate the environment for that long. As an aussie trained glider pilot, one thing your instructors push is re-hydration. The rule of thumb is 2 litres drank every hour...and trust me, at that, after 6.5 hours you have never thought about taking a leak...2 litres per hour is not enough.
So our lil pilot in this instance has taken off for a short flight, certainly not carrying the water to fly for 4 hours under stress that probably required 4 litres per hour replacement.

4. Result.
Said pilot, heavily stressed (4 hours to think about it), heavily dehdyrated with impaired motor skills that go with that condition makes a less than perfect (in your opinion) landing, in an aeroplane that the insurer know owns, which at best was only ever capable of a controlled crash, walked away.

Maybe SSD, we should set up an aeroplane with the same fault and see how you perform, without the environmental issues this pilot had to deal with. Surely you can show us how it should be done

I see no reason to denigrate this guy on his performance, just pat him on the back and get him airborne again to continue the passion that fuels so many of us.

Cheers
Jas

PS...looked in my book...got time in that aircraft. Never have flown a warrior with air-con..so don't even mention it.

[fujii]

jas24zzk
Dead right. I flew from Evans Head to Riddell the day before and was drinking all the way. High 30s at YPMQ and 42 degrees at YBTH and YSWG and that was with all wheels. Long day.

[kms901]

I have been in exactly that situation in a Cherokee, and it is surprising how long you can hold the wing up. Mine was on grass and ended in a graceful groundloop.

[VH-Cheer Up]

Said pilot, heavily stressed (4 hours to think about it), heavily dehdyrated with impaired motor skills that go with that condition makes a less than perfect (in your opinion) landing, in an aeroplane that the insurer know owns, which at best was only ever capable of a controlled crash, walked away.

Exactly.

I bet the next time that pilot urinated it still would have looked like concentrated radiator coolant. Four hours in that aircraft he would have been long past dehydration and well into dessication.

[ZuluPapa]

You dont say!

Jokes aside, He was obviously panicking and just wanted to get it down... he could have done far more to minimise the damage to the aircraft but it wasn't his, he walked away, fair play.

[fujii]

Quote:

kms901

I have been in exactly that situation in a Cherokee, and it is surprising how long you can hold the wing up. Mine was on grass and ended in a graceful groundloop.


Exactly that situation? Four hours holding, windy, 40+ degrees!

[Contacttower]

I see no reason to denigrate this guy on his performance, just pat him on the back and get him airborne again to continue the passion that fuels so many of us.

Yes I agree we shouldn't denigrate the pilot's performance and I agree the situation would not have been conducive to the pilot being in great physical shape by the time in the landing! I have not flown in Australia but Florida in August with 35 degrees and insane humidity can't be far off...it does definitely affect one's performance.

That doesn't mean people can't constructively opine though about situations like that in general, what might have been tried alternatively, what might have been done differently...just food for thought that's all. Just because I can't say (as I said at the start) hand on heart that I could do better doesn't mean I can't sit here and wonder about how it might have been done better.

The grass will obviously cause less damage to the wingtip, but if the wingtip digs into the grass (instead of sliding over it) it may put severe strain on the spar in just the wrong direction (horizontal instead of vertical). And if the aircraft yaws through 90 degrees, you are also putting a severe sideways load on the remaining wheel and wheel attachment, which may cause damage there as well.

Interesting question...I actually think what the guy in the video may have been trying to do had good logic behind it...I'm no engineer but my perception of these things would go like this...

The hard is probably initially better because if you can keep the bad wing elevated then you have a better surface to maintain directional control. Although in the video he appears to strike the wing with the missing wheel on touchdown he quickly picks it up and maintains the aircraft straight on the runway for a few hundred metres after that. I would have thought that once you lose control authority to hold the wing up...that is the time to exit onto the grass. Hopefully by that time the speed would have been reduced to not put too much strain on the spar; I notice from the video that once on the grass the aircraft pivots around the landing gear stub (as one would expect). Provided the remaining wheel did its job of rotating as the aircraft spun around I wouldn't have thought there was that much strain on the spar if the speed of rotation was low.

So perhaps in a perfect world he would have not braked so aggressively and waited for a lower speed before exiting the runway...again just thinking out loud...not trying to criticise as such...

By keeping a tad more speed and power on, it's easier to pick up the wing with the ailerons and bring things into a stable situation, before you pull the power and try to keep the aircraft under control for as long as you can with aerodynamics only.

Yes I think that is the strategy that I would try to adopt if this happened to me tomorrow. I'm not going to claim that I would achieve a level of success acceptable to the court of PPRuNe though... Maybe this is something that we should be practicing from time to time?

Just looking at the POH for a slightly larger aircraft that actually gives some guidance on this issue. It just says to keep the weight (using the controls) on the good wheel, lower nosewheel immediately for steering, mixture to ICO and land towards the side of the runway with the good wheel to allow space for turning towards the bad one.

[jas24zzk]

ContactTower said....

With a long runway (no idea how long the runway was in this case...) it could be advantageous to keep power on though...would have given more control authority to keep the wing with the missing wheel off the ground.

Not sure which of Mangalores (code YMNG) runways this was on, but one is 1461 metres, and the other is 2027 metres. You can convert that to feet yourself if needed. Plenty of room on either.

Might also have been a idea to cut the engine once full contact with the runway had been made...just in case another wheel had collapsed and brought the prop into contact with the ground.

It was probably one of the things discussed with the PIC, given my previous post, restricted performance probably erased it. That is not to say any of us could perform any better. Its amazing how much of a well laid plan the human brain can forget.

I don't think there is anything wrong with passing comment on these videos...no point in just saying "oh what a rubbish landing" but thinking about and illustrating what a pilot may have done better in an emergency situation is constructive to the forum and the general debate on here. One day someone might just remember something they read on PPRuNe...it might just improve their flying or help them out in a difficult spot.

I agree with you in most part of this statement, except this bit...

but thinking about and illustrating what a pilot may have done better

. The real point is how did the pilot get themself into a position to make these basic errors? That is where the real lesson lies. Remember the truth to an accident is not the item that makes itself apparent first. That is usually the item that happened last.

[jas24zzk]

Yes I agree we shouldn't denigrate the pilot's performance and I agree the situation would not have been conducive to the pilot being in great physical shape by the time in the landing! I have not flown in Australia but Florida in August with 35 degrees and insane humidity can't be far off...it does definitely affect one's performance.

Very similar, but 100% different.

Florida, 35 degree's ( i can still wear long pants and drink hot coffee) 100% humidity. You are soaked through. Despite the clear visibility of moisture on your body, you actually lose less moisture. The air around you is already saturated, therefore it cannot remove the moisture off your body, and the cooling begins. Think about basic met if you need and heat transfer.

Mangalore on the day in question. 42 degrees and zero humidity. you sweat and the atmosphere sucks it straight off you, so you sweat more to no avail.

Surprisingly, the 42c 0% humidity is a lot more comfortable than 35c and 95% humidty but it will kill you oh so much faster

[Contacttower]

The real point is how did the pilot get themself into a position to make these basic errors? That is where the real lesson lies.

True, although what are you referring to (apologies for perhaps not completely understanding what you are saying)? Environmental/human factors as you posted about previously? The quality of the training he received? Other factors that lead to the accident playing out the way it did?

Asking how did the accident get to this point/outcome and what could have been done better are not mutually exclusive by any means! All I'm saying is that if this (or indeed any other emergency that has been disscussed on here before) happened to me tomorrow, which it could, I might remember something I read on PPRuNe and it might help me.

[Contacttower]

Surprisingly, the 42c 0% humidity is a lot more comfortable than 35c and 95% humidty but it will kill you oh so much faster

Yes I was wondering about what sort of humidity level there would be in that part of Australia. I know exactly what you mean though about hot humid vs. a dry heat...you don't necessarily realise what the dry heat is doing to you.