Plane nearly lands on man
 

Talk about a lucky escape or near miss, this is one very lucky chap,

Lucky escape: Plane narrowly misses German sunbather


A man sunbathing on a German beach will be reconsidering his choice of location next time after a plane almost landed on top of him as it was approaching the neighbouring runway.
A video filmed by a fellow sunbather shows a small Piper PA-28-181 Archer 11 flying dangerously close over the man as it flew in from the coast of Dune beach in Heligoland, a tiny archipelago in northern Germany.

Runway at Helgoland is just 370m/480m, so you have to land short. But not that short...
And the guy in the sand clearly followed the instructions... ("Danger - low flying Aircraft - do not stand in the approach area - wait here if an aircraft is approaching"), well at least he followed the middle part and did not stand...

...and no one complains about the fence which was mown...

And given the dust at touchdown he clearly landed short.

That's two lucky guys in my equation.

It looks like the Archer took out some of the fence posts & then landed in the sand short of the runway.

There are three interesting aspects to this report. The first and most obvious is that there are people so close to the undershoot of this runway. The second and less obvious and unreported fact was the fact that the aircraft flew through the perimeter fence just before landing. The video clearly shows damage but despite that the associated report stated "The plane was also in fine condition and Drucker was able to fly home the same evening." Presumably there's a local engineer on the island capable of inspection and repair? The last aspect is that if you drag an aircraft in on a slow, flat approach, you can't see a thing under the nose. What this guy really needs is more training on performing steeper approaches, not a fine.

He was too low and the sunbather shouldn't have been there - end of story.

I have plonked down heavy four jets on the threshold of short runways but not when the approach was inhabited. Should normally be crossed at 50' of course.

Some idiot many years ago decided to take a VC10 into Grand Cayman on a trainer (5,000' in those days). I couldn't believe how small it looked on the approach. The whole town turned out to see the biggest aircraft ever to land there. I didn't do that again :eek: Nice night stop though.

Did this start as a stunt?

Why was the sunbather there?

Was the sunbather having a dare and his friend was filming or does the person with the camera film every arrival?

(not defending the pilot for an undershoot)

Imagine the negative PR for GA if the guy had been hurt.

Original story here, in German:

Helgoland-Video: Flugzeug rast im Tiefflug über Strandurlauber - News Inland - Bild.de

It says, a doctor and his two sons were visiting the island and he had already videotaped some 4 or 5 approaching planes before this one, which to him seemed to come in much lower than the others. Which is sort of true, I suppose :hmm:

An apt demonstration of how not to do short field landing. The old misbelief that a low flat approach is better than a normal glide path at a slower speed to a shorter touchdown. IMHO this was so low & flat, with a high nose, that the pilot would have been straining to see the touchdown point once over the sea/beach boundary. 480m in a Cherokee? You could do touch & goes twice on that. It's a decent Par 5.

Here is a second view:

Surely he had his towel there early?

With or without sunbathers (and that fence) it was a tad on the short side methinks.

That pilot clearly needs a bit more training.

The German magazine Bild also interviewed the pilot, who said he´s sorry, he botched the landing and didn´t see the man on the beach. In another article they say the public prosecutor has opened an investigation and if the pilot is convicted of dangerous operation of an aircraft, he could face a jail sentence of 6 months or more. Besides, the aviation authorities will look into it as well.

Haarscharf über Badegast geflogen: Staatsanwalt ermittelt gegen Helgoland-Tiefflieger - News Inland - Bild.de (in German)

He could get hired to fly the B777 for Asiana.

SKS

:D:D:D:D:D

Very good :ok:

Only needs a little bit of tail wind to upset ones expectations in a lightie.

More training needed.

Terrible piece of flying imho he took out one of the fence posts too if you look closely, could have ended very badly, I hope they throw the book at him.

Submarine approach - spent all his energy early.

If he does those all the time, he will get into trouble regularly.

This bloke flew a 738 into DPS for LionAir previously, right? :E

He can at least get her on the runway now. :E

I wonder if I should let the airport manager know, that I've got a good supplier for PVC fenceposts, so that damage is minimal in any future landings in the same style? :)