I have had plenty of experience landing Boeings in severe crosswinds (50K). Each time it was the only Rwy available. All of them were in a Boeing. The hardest was the B-707 due to clearance between ground and inboard engine. It was a skill we practiced many times in the simulator (except there was no B-707 Simulator that had that capabiliity). The manouver to straighten out must be made at the correct time. The good thing about the Boeings is that when you move the controls as required, they responded. My understanding, from fellow pilots who flew the Airbus, is that even when you disconnect the autopilot the computers make the final decision. In the video it appears that the pilot should have recognized that it was not a stable approach, probably due to severe gusts. He should have gone around before committing himself to continue his landing. However, we all know that hangar flying is bull, because we were not there. The solution for any pilot is to know the capabilities of his aircraft. And the Airbus, according to the imput I have received, does have the reputation of making crosswind landings difficult. That is one reason I stayed on Boeings throughout my career (B707, 737, 747-400).

Anyway, I repeat, none of us were there, and it is often easy to criticise. But knowing the capabilites of your aircraft, and your competency is paramount. In this age, with the Simulators available, you can practice. However, often "get home-ites" gets the best of us. Steady x-wing is one thing, severe gusts on approach, it is time to go somewhere else. As to x-wind limitations, they are usually advisory, but if you screw it up, you will have to answer to your decision. Again, know your aircraft and if it is extremely gusty, no matter which airplane, go somewhere else. The old airport in Hong Kong has seen many examples where someone made a wrong decision.

NOD, are you saying that spoilers on the left wing, and/or flight controls on the right wing would have enough remaining control authority to overcome a jammed aileron (depending on jammed neutral or jammed deflected I guess)?

Well presumably, since there are plenty of failures you can fly with where both ailerons don't work (albeit ideally floating neutral) ;)

NoD

If an aileron is jammed deflected, one could use the rudder and side slip too I guess. It would make a landing rather tricky I think, especially with a cross wind, unless one could choose the cross wind direction?

Since a gust is often just a parcel of higher, faster moving air coming down to the ground, then the "right-with-height" observation explains the veer.

Do we know which pilot was flying? Check the inside of the Bild and you will see that the co-pilot is more attractive than the Captain, IMHO!

Flight Safety,

Exactly, that's the whole point. If this guy had tried to continue with the landing and ended up over the grass, with a possible control problem and STILL in the same nasty wind conditions that assisted the damage in the first place...............????

The bottom line is he got it away from the ground, sorted the A/C and himself out, re-grouped and chose another runway. No loss of life........just some explaining to to. :{

We are all capable of making mistakes, errors of judgement etc... it's what you do after the mistake that counts.

From the above linked press article:

Just for info - this is too direct translation: "Deutsche Flugsicherung" which could be verbally translated into "German Flight Safety" is Germany's ATC...

on youtube again
 

there it is again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueJeC...&feature=bz301

On a slight tangent: Once again, all carriers must be ready for amateur video footage of their a/c to be shown at any time. Whether the a/c and crew show up well or badly, they must presume that the entire world can see what happened.

Likewise, all crew must assume that someone is taking a video of them, inside or outside, legally or not!

A320
 

Sky News cobweb has the a/c as an A380 landing at Munich !

Marvellous research as ever.

Eagle

The story has now been corrected with the News Editor telling me that "we knew it was a 320, the reporter made a typing error". You couldn't make it up could you?!

another a320 x-winder
 

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/969255...swind_landing/

a320 drivers spot the difference.

Less than a year ago I finished my conversion from 737 ,which I have flown for 7 years, to A320.

I fully agree with lot of posts here that the Boeing handles better in these circumstances. Nevertheless, below 50 feet the Bus should be in direct Law. This means so much that your sidestick input is directly proportional to control surface deflection. In this last phase of flight "the machine" should not be superimposing inputs on pilot's inputs.

Another question that fascinates me: the certification criteria (JAR) for escape slides are 25 kts. This means that at greater wind speeds there is a serious possibility that they may be not or only partially usable. If something goes wrong (and the video demonstrates that that is more likely whith these weather conditions as to CAVOK, wind calm) how do you evacuate??

Grtz

CNN
 

CNN has posted the video on their website this morning.

Not sure I agree ;)

Direct Law, apart from the failure cases, is on Takeoff Roll >50R / 5s etc. then blends to Normal Law.

On Approach, from 50R, it enters "Flare Mode". This is essentially "Normal Law" but with a Pitch added factor (tries to push nose down). In Roll, AFAIK it is still Normal Law. It does not go back to "Direct Law (Ground Mode)" until 5s after landing...

Certification criteria is not a "limit". You evacuate regardless if needed...

NoD

I stand corrected :rolleyes:


I agree that if you need to evacuate you just do it. But how likely is an succesful evacuation if your slides are blown all over the place due to the wind. Correct me if I am wrong but if an exit / slide is inop you have penalties regarding the number of pax you may take, because it takes longer to evacuate. Nobody is doing that here.. What if something goes wrong and people get injured or worse because they couldn't leave the A/C on time. Who is responsible?! If your A/C is certified to a certain limit and you willingly exceed this limit than you are gonna have a hard time explaining yourself I guess. How far is that the case here? Should you fly somewhere where the wind is gusting up 45 - 55 kts, and where the possibility is great that your alternates have more or less the same weather conditions? I know everybody does it, I've done it as well, it just makes me think..

Happy landings!

I am unaware that the aircraft is certified to this limit. If it were, then such a limit would be in the FCOM "Limitations" section. I have all sorts of limits in there, some related to wind... but nothing about slides :eek:

In short, if the slides have a 25K limit, then so does the aircraft for passenger carrying operations ;)

I think you may be alluding to a JAR Ops test being conducted at 25K or similar. That might be a "certification requirement", it is not an aircraft limit however if the Flt Crew don't have it as such :)

IMHO of course ;)

NoD

Just saw it on CNN. Interesting on Xwind limits for various operators. We are a very large Airbus operator in America and our 320/319 Xwind limit is 29kts. We include all of the gusts when computing the Xwind. Also cannot land with a reported loss of airspeed of greater than 15kts. As one can see, we are conservative which is ok by me.

On extremely Xwind days, my personal technique is to take out a little of the crab prior to the flare. It appears in the vid that most of the rudder was applied at touch down. On short final I like to remind my crew member and more importantly myself a go-around is always an option...sometimes we forget that in the heat of the battle.

Not familiar with the A320, but all I see is a bad x-wind landing.

Yes agree, very poorly executed.