RJ85 damaged Florence
 

Anyone have any knowledge of this event reported in Aerosinside.com?

"A Cityjet Avro RJ-85, registration EI-RJG performing flight WX-281 from London City,EN (UK) to Florence (Italy), landed on Florence's runway 05 at 13:19L (12:19Z) but touched down hard. The aircraft rolled out without further incident, there were no injuries, the aircraft received substantial damage however."
Stated to be still on ground 1st April

Initially classified by the ANSV as a serious incident, subsequently recategorised as an accident, given the degree of damage to the aircraft.

Well
It must've been bluddy hard!

Not the most fragile of aircraft......

Having said that I have seen a number of absolute humdinger landings with this aircraft type - notably that video of the Swiss RJ85 at London City.

The tail got a nasty scratch
Accident: Cityjet RJ85 at Florence on Mar 23rd 2016, hard landing and tail strike

Flightline had a similar incident at Florence some years ago with G-BPNT. In this instance the aircraft went round and returned to Florence. From the images the damage appears similar. BPNT took 9 months or so to repair. I suspect if the damage below the skin is significant then this will be a write off.

It takes some kind of expert to land an RJ/146 hard... Seriously tough airframe and gear. The only ones I ever saw manage it were trainers......

Mentioning trainers. I had some near misses in my time. We once had passengers kissing the tarmac at FCO after a young man had refused to round out and I was a fraction late getting there. I am sure some will know who was involved and with what airline....!

I think it might be worth pointing out that landing at Florence can be rather tricky at times. In my last company we re-qualified all of our pilots in the sim every 6 months.

I've got about 8,000 hours on the 146 but none on the RJ I hasten to add. 146 tail scrapes in my experience though can often be caused by flying below the correct bug speed either through mishandling or incorrect bug setting. Here's an example, it's the Princess Air accident at Jersey in June 1990:

https://assets.digital.cabinet-offic...PRIN_10-90.pdf

Two tail strikes in last two years,both mgmt pilots,once is unfortunate,twice begs serious questions of training section.

Florence used to frighten the life out of people in the old days before the ILS was installed. No more than 600' over the river Arno or you went around and turned left into the hills! It used to be a Cat C field. Not sure now. 146 was fine even full and the RJ is easier, auto throttle and auto spoilers. No real excuse and the METAR was fairly benign.

That Princess Air report was for their inaugural flight and as with others it was a management pilot.

Florence is Cat B if you only want to land on 05 and depart 23. Land 23 or depart towards the hill then it is still Cat C.

Phantom4,

When was the 2nd tailstrike?

RJ Damaged Florence
 

Last year at Dublin

Ldg RW05 gives you a nice sinker over the threshold in certain conditions! Just sayin'!

There are a couple of other subtle factors with Florence.
For local reasons, the reported wind (limited to 10kt tail with the last operator I flew there with) and the GNX display often varied by 10kts or more. I am reliably informed that this disparity is well noted by seasoned operators into FLR.

The other interesting one is the balked landing case on 05 which has DAYLIGHT VISUAL ONLY rather prominently displayed. Having watched a car using the runway a shortcut one fine Summer's evening, one must wonder how night ops are permitted.

What is so challenging at Florence compared to the other end of the route, and Cityjet's operating base, at London City ?

Close-in terrain; not too many hills/mountains around LCY.

I guess you've not made an approach into LCY when on easterlies, with the Canary Wharf towers, and even nowadays The Shard when turning from right base, notably (in fact very notably) close, as you do the 5.5 degree steep approach. And then the next time you arrive you are doing the same in solid IMC.