Reference the Load 15 report, be careful if your expecting it a it can be switched off in the ACMS software.

I was working for a carrier that was having a number of hard landings that were being picked up by the FDM program but not reported in the Tech Log and on investigating we asked why they were not written up. The flight crew response was that there was no printed Load 15 report. With a little digging the auto print function had been turned off so the crew were expecting something they were never going to get.

So if you think its hard write it up and let engineering do the rest.

At my outfit an acars printout is generated whenever a landing of more than (i believe) 2G is made. That certainly makes you aware of the severity of the "landing" that you just made.
Also, the printout is automatically sent to the maintenance guys at home base. So there is no way that you would be able to keep it quiet and pretend that 3.5G wouldnt warrant an inspection.

I think the "when and what" are known. The "who, why, where and how" need a little more work. Again we are not provided with enough information to suggest wrong doing on anyone's part. So I'll not suggest that we string up the crew just yet nor is retraining necessarily required. What needs to be discovered with some urgency is how this aircraft was able to depart and why this went unreported. It suggests, but I have little evidence, that Germania's Ops. Control was not working well that day.

PM

Although the total mass well forward of CofG is not that great, it still has to be accelerated from its touchdown angle. I think that would make a significant difference to the pilot's perception of the feel, however, seeing the concrete coming up to getcha after the wheels have touched should be a clue.

It's strange how these things happen. One FO I routinely flew with did everything beautifully - until one day he didn't. In the last 50', with the speed correct, he suddenly flew at the ground. I was pulling probably within one second, and just managed to skate it on more or less flat.

There was just no explanation how a seemingly competent young man could, not just allow this to happen, but seem to actively cause it to happen.

Double D's with broken straps
 

Many moons ago, I was a panel monkey on a 72. The Captain or it could have been the Co-Captain dropped one in on 18 in DCA. As we turn off the runway the cockpit door opens and this huge bra with broken straps lands on my table. Those were the days......

Ha! The stuff of the classic Figment cartoon :ok:

Okay, I know this is the serious thread, but this has to go in here - though it'll be only moments before it's kicked out.

I'd always wondered where her bra had gone.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7.../BiiiigHat.jpg

mustangsally, you made my day! :))

BTW, there is also a little longer video of the DC-9 accident on youtube:

Don't you just love dry Tower wit?
Some years back, a Thai 743 'dropped one in' on arrival at YSSY.
The word from the tower was simply .. "Thai xxx, when you've put your teeth back in, ...."
We cracked up.

When an A320 had its heavy landing at KOS 5/7/2007, the initial G 3.15 first bounce, 2.75 on the landing. Substantial damage, and maintenance action carried out by engineers being flown out, before flying again. AAIB report gives full details.
Just how was it, that the initial visual inspection failed to reveal any damage???

I was in the cockpit of a heavy 4 engine jet, just before the main wheels touched, the stick shaker rattled. The pilot was an ex WW2 pathfinder, on the mosquito. He had the skills to do this at will. Now that was a pilot, not a driver.

There is just absolutely no way in hell that if the landing was really 3.5g the pilots wouldn't have felt it.

Doesn't matter if they were sat 800m forward of the wheels on duck feather pillows :}

The worst I've ever felt was 1.8g on a 777 & I can tell you there was no way we didn't feel it. Amazingly the cockpit door failed closed until all the pax disembarked :p

I watched from the jumpseat of a Gemini MD-11 jumpseat as a captain made the hardest landing I'd ever seen. It was in Campinas Brazil.

We congratulated ourselves on surviving as we slowed to taxi speed. Then the tower said, "Geemeenee, notify your maintenance, you left a piece of the plane on the runway...."

It was one of the "canoes" - the fiberglass flap track covers.....

' I was in the cockpit of a heavy 4 engine jet, just before the main wheels touched, the stick shaker rattled. The pilot was an ex WW2 pathfinder, on the mosquito. He had the skills to do this at will. Now that was a pilot, not a driver.'


No, that was a guy who got way too slow, if you're activating the stick shaker just before touch down on a four engine jet you're doing it WRONG.

I remember years ago similar idiots would pull the throttles back to idle on downwind and do a power off approach in the 727 'managing energy'.

They were local heroes and legends in their own mind. Thank God those fools are long gone. :D

Hope this was written up so maintenance can do the correct visual inspection ...

I remember a marginal director of flight ops decided to be a 727 captain. Didn't have much experience to begin with. Landed so hard, a door warning annunciator light illuminated. On the return leg, he tried to taxi with the ground guy still having his headset plugged in. For other reason, he was let go from the airline(but not the first time he was let go from an airline) :):):)

Stilton

Correct, he was doing it wrong but he always got a good landing from it.

The person who pulled off the 3.5 g landing "did it right" and still smashed the aircraft. Who would you rather have flying you?

Anyone else.

Smooth doesn't equate to good either.