155 mph wind + Landing Airbus320 = Whoa!

I remember returning back to Uni on a 737 into a stormy evening, wind on front quarter - at twilight, 60yo senior pilot’s last flight, apologised for the turbulence, after much see-sawing, pitching and yawing above the runway and then straightening, we finally touched down after we past the tower and buildings and then with all the reverse thrust and noise he could muster we pulled up on the long runway and turned with one wheel on the grass at the other end… to return down the runway quite a ways to meet the taxiway. I was quite relieved he was a senior pilot with the confidence and conviction of what these amazing small jets can achieve!! :shock:

how about a 705 ton building moving?
http://www.kcci.com/video/15473079/index.html

I watch quite a lot of those Building moves on the discovery channels called Mega Movers
Its amazing as to what they can actually move and how they go about it, great program :slight_smile:

can you imagine if some one not so sober saw that… :roll:

Ok i hafta tell my fun aeronautic adventure.

Alaska island, crappy weather, rain, sleet, snow etc. landing on a runway bulldozed in a cliff right by the ocean. I don’t know what the plane was but it was fairly large though only a few passengers, had more then one engine(jet). It was probably way too windy because we were moving around quite a bit as the pilot was coming down to the runway. I remember looking out the window to the right with the rockwall looking way too close to the wing tips and out the otherside seeing the ocean waves breaking on the rocks, way too close, 8O the plane dipped to the right at way too much of angle with the right landing gear hitting the ground, way too hard, which caused the plane to shudder, way too hard, and slew to the right actually just right :smiley: so that we lined up with the runway and the pilot putting the left gear to the ground. I talked to the pilot about the landing, like did you do that on purpose? to which he replied with a time worn response ‘any landing you can walk away from…’ Oh man that reminds me of a time we landed on the beach…anyway.

Yeah - it seems like they use the wing tips as training wheels! :shock: :roll:

Alaska! Reminds me of a unique flying experience I had there. Flying in a commercial jet, not a big one, but not small either - at least 5 or 6 seats wide. It was a commuter run that hit several of the towns up the Alaska panhandle. The area around one of the airports had broken dense fog deck close to the ground, and the runway was completely covered in one of the large patches. Apparently it was not an instrument enabled airfield. First the pilot tried to land by flying down under the fog deck a few miles out, in the little layer of clear air right above sea level and make his approach that way. It seemed we were about 50 ft above the water. As we approached the runway we entered complete fog and he gave up on that and pulled up. Then he made two more low “passes” to (and this is a quote of the pilot over the cabin speakers) “try and blow enough fog off the runway to land”. Each pass was followed by a radical banking turn to miss the mountain that was a little ways past the runway. It was literally a 90 degree bank where you’re looking straight down out the window. After the third try he gave up and flew to the next stop in the schedule. That’s the only time I’ve been in a commercial jet that was flown like it was a crop duster.

I think it would have been 155kph winds and not 155mph winds
aws they use kph in Germany
they would not have attempted landing in 155mph winds

its amazing though how a big jet can be so responsive to the controls when it needs to be!

It almost looked like the starboard engine hit the deck briefly, while under full throttle…
When I arrived home earlier I finally saw it for the first time. Pilot made a good decision - no alternative really when your wingtip hits the deck and you have lost lift and direction stability… at least he had great reactions and so the plane did respond well!

I think there are some facts that never should have happened.

Landing was at 13:55LT, 12:55Z. Hamburg (EDDH) metar was:

EDDH 011220Z 29028G48KT 9000 -SHRA FEW011 BKN014 07/05 Q0984 TEMPO 29035G55KT 4000 SHRA BKN008

Wind from 290

so how did 55 kts (60mph or so) get turned into 155mph,LOL

Sounded pretty exciting to me, but it was a mistake by the Associated Press that was picked up by a lot of other media “[color=red](This version CORRECTS Corrects that plane was traveling at 155 mph; that was not the speed of the wind.)”[/color]

[quote author=Breitling link=topic=30202.msg242207#msg242207 date=1204621823]
Wind from 290

I’m curious about when he decided to abort the landing. The reports make it sound like it was after he’d touched the wing down, and if that’s true I’m surprised he didn’t abort it earlier when he still had more altitude but was flying significantly out of line with the runway.

An old saying " There are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots " and I think this guy was very very lucky not to be in the last category!

Stuart

Not to mention the passengers! :wink: 8) #-o.

Breitling - thanks for the details! There must also have been other airports with better conditions in the region as well, like a better aligned runway to that strong wind. Thanks for the pics too.

http://www.airbus.com/store/mm_repository/safety_library_items/att00007639/media_object_file_FLT_OPS-LAND-SEQ05.pdf
Page 2, Table 1 gives A320 crosswind landing constraints straight from the horse’s mouth. They may even have been down to Medium Reported Braking Action in this case. Lufthansa’s SOPs may be slightly different.
Still, if you are on a stable approach, within acceptable crosswind constraints all the way down to decision height, and then you get a 40-50 kt crosswind gust out of nowhere, this will happen.

Exceptional piloting skills saved a nasty situation here.

The following is a commentary on this subject from my brother-in-law who flew F-4’s and F16’s in the US Air Force for 22 years.

Quote:
The verbal description is not what really happened. The pilot was holding a severe crab to maintain runway alignment (That

I agree. The transition from crab angle to touchdown has to be a quick cross-control movement. Right aileron to keep the right wing down as much as 5 degrees. At the same time left rudder to align the runway. At the same time flare to rise the nose. The result is a right main landing gear touchdown at first, followed by the left one and then the nose gear, a much more stable maneouvre in such conditions.