A320 nearly crashes during storm "Emma" in Hamburg

Or the gear can "snap" off due to the side load at landing speed. Very few planes can land in a crab, the vast majority must use the upwind wing low method.

The real problem is that the A320 is to computerized. The computers take the inputs from the pilots and then if it decides it is to much it then applies a corrective action, which in some cases can work against the pilots inputs.

When the weather is bad the plane needs to be Man-handled so to say, make a hard firm landing. Something the computer doesn't like to let you do.

Hi all. Hope you don't mind the intrusion. Don't know how I found this particular discussion, but I did live in Frankfurt/Main (USAF and then civilian) for several years way back.

By the way: The news report says the aircraft "landed on a different runway" after its goaround.

Watching and rewatching the video, there's a particular point at which the crosswind suddenly lulls, and the aircraft drifts off centerline to the right. Right THERE is where I would have gone full throttle without reducing my crab angle. Hindsight is a wonderful thing... Sure would like to know what the pilot was thinking. This is one of those rare instances where a long, stabilized approach would result in the pilot getting very misleading signals (in other words: "la, la, la" down to 300' AGL and then the snot hits the fan).

Barry

I have always considered the old phrase "Bang it on the Deck" can apply usefully to so many aspects of modern life.

Now it gets REAL interesting cause the tower gave the pilot a choice which runway to use (hamburger abendblatt)

so he (captain Oliver A.(39) and co-pilot Maxi(24)) decided to use the worst option.
just for your info. runway 23 has ILS but 33 does not so maybe he decided on that count to try 23 first?

not all planes landed in hamburg that day: emirates from dubai landed in frankfurt after 2 aborts, as did a few others.

Bremen was closed due to the weather

On CNN.com there's a video interview with an American who was one of the passengers on the plane.

The interviewer chick is an annoying retard, but the interviewee gives some fairly interesting insight.

See: Plane scrapes wing during landing

CNN.com's Nicole Lapin is a real brain "what happened when the plane landed, were the people, like, happy?"

where do they get the people from?

Presumably hired on the basis of her looks rather than intelligence.

thats tru, why dont we hook her up with that guy and his 7 kids. LOL

A320 for a 24 year old? I guess I'm a little old school, but seems a little young for this type of equipment.

lufthansa picks'em right out of school(Gymnasium)and sends them to there training center (I think it's in Pheonix/Ariz) so the training beginns when the "kids" are about 20.

I think "maxi" is cute, sounds like a pornstar with a stick in her hand...

This plane was not coming from very far away - so the flight crew must of known what sort of weather they were going to run into before taking off from Munich. One cannot help wondering - well just how bad does it have to be before they decide maybe it is good idea to let this storm blow over first. Seems they are putting peoples lives at risk to me - people that are putting their trust in them thinking that they know exactly what they are doing. It's fine for this pilot giving themselves a thrill but no fun for the poor twats in the back. It is not without reason they didn't give out the pilot's name.

Errm not quite the thrill your average pilot is looking for i feel.

He was also on the plane and would have died too ya know?

Sounds like a change of underwear trip for all on board

As the pilot straightened the plane for touchdown his right wing should have been lower - well it wasn't it was slightly high and this allowed the gust to get under the wing and push it over the way it did. The pilot should have had his right wing lower when straightening the aircraft or decided to go around before he got into that sticky situation or try a different runway or even divert or not fly at all. If this plane had crashed I would have blamed the pilot.

From the report it seems as though the tower should have allocated a different runway in the first place, so maybe not entirely the pilots fault.

Strangely, I find this video slightly comforting. I tend to be an anxious flyer, particularly during mid-flight turbulence (I know, it's stupid). Seeing what kind of stress an aircraft can endure and how a pilot can react quickly to a terrible situation actually makes me feel a bit safer. But maybe that's just me.

I don't care what the tower allocates. The Captain decides which runway is safest for landing. Maybe they need a little more assertiveness training for Lufthansa pilots?

Several years ago I was on the jump seat of an A320 with the left seat occupied by a captain-under-supervision and the right seat by a trainings captain.
As we came into land at DUS there was gusty sidewind & snow showers & to boot the trainings captain declared "ILS kaputt - VOR approach please".
I asked the trainings captain whether they would come in like the chinese aviator (wun-wing-lo) or crabwise & kick it straight with rudder just before touchdown
similar to what we do in gliders & his answer was "just as you do" & so it was.


First of all - dont necessarily believe what the media says. They may or may not be right...
I believe I found the track of that plane in the STANLY_Track application and it showed a go-around and subsequent landing on same RWY. The track I saw was for an A320 and the identification number ended "44". Not 100% proof but fairly close. I dont have the printout in front of me as I'm travelling on business.

Finally we can all read about it in the BFU's report when that appears.

Its the pilots fault.

It was not his first flight into HAM, and knowing the airfield he should have known that the gusts would be even stronger when he crosses the other runway(since the wind can travel down the crossing runway unhindered) so it would have been more intelligent to go straight for RW33 into the gusts!!!

and to think the pilots got a 25%raise a few years ago(argument:they are responsible for the lives of the people in back) !!!

Ask my in a few months when I have a few hours under my belt HEM

According to Spiegel.Online it was the Co-Pilot who tried the landing that almost led to a crash. The Captain then took over and saved the day. Why he let the 24 year old girl try this risky maneuvre in the first place noone knows.

Thats almost worse, maybe he was trying to show-off letting her handle it.

Reminds me of a flight in a troop transport witha leut. as pilot on his first flight(sure felt like it and I never saw people jump so fast )

...and this pilot is lucky to have it, eh?

24-Year-Old Co-Pilot Made First Landing Attempt

A young co-pilot steered the Airbus A320 that almost crashed on Saturday while trying to land in heavy wind. The more experienced 39-year-old pilot then took over to abort the landing and take off again ...

I've never been a big fan of the kick it straight just before touchdown. Using the rudder leaving about 100' gives you a better feel for how tough the winds are. Better to get an idea up there then to find out in the flare. And remember it's not just the Rudder - it is Rudder and wing low.

If you watch the video when the Rudder is kicked out the right wing rises indicating that the wing was not low enough into the wind. Applying the Rudder to straighten out the fuselage will cause the up wind wing to generate more lift than the downwind wing - creating the right wing lift you see on the video.


Training young pilots for crosswinds is a good idea. However, there is a time and place for that and it was definitely not then.

As a self proclaimed commercial pilot Tex, your attitude to this is somewhat surprising?

How so?

How good are fright simulators? How well can they simulate the conditions experienced on that day for example?

Typo of The Year.

They are pretty good. But nothing can replace the real world experience of getting the S*** beat out of you in rough weather.

I liked your term "fright" simulators. We always called then "Dial a Death", you never know which catastrophe the instructor will enter into the computer.

I have just seen the front page of Bild and it shows a picture of The 24 year old female co-pilot!

Tits out or what?

I've just seen the pic. She can crash my jet anytime she likes.

Heh. Just typed BILD in google and guess what I get:

British Institute of Learning Disabilities

Good to see you've found assistance at last, Genie.

Okay, it was a long, long time ago, but a buddy of my ex brother-in-law decided to get out of print advertising development and applied for pilot training with Lufthansa. He had some private pilot hours under his belt, so he thought he'd have a leg up on the requirements. The long interview included some psychological testing (unbeknownst to him). It went this way, and maybe it still does. He was presented with various hypothetical flight challenges that included the the expected and unexpected, and he was asked what he thought would be the best ways to deal with the situations.

They accepted his assessments and responses on some very difficult situations, so he was feeling pretty good about himself. Then, they challenged his classic response to a classic situation. He knew his answer was right, so he told them and explained it all very rationally, and of course he was right about the whole thing. But they continued to question and probe and ask him to reexamine things again, which he did, repeatedly. Finally, under repeated challenges that seemed to him absurd and pointless, he told them pointedly that it was time to move on to something else.

At which point they politely thanked him and terminated the interview!

If it is the same at Lufthansa today, then they definitely value unwavering resolve.

But resolve doesn't necessarily beget good judgment. That near accident wasn't the wind's fault; the pilot clearly exceeded her own limits.

meh. for Germany, not such a hot number.

Mate, at my age you can't be too fussy.

Link to photos and article.

Apparently a friend of hers died in a plane accident.

Was she flyin'?

A number of friends of mine have died in flying accidents. One a former girl friend.

I've had a number of friends and relatives die in flying accidents. Including three former girlfriends, two casual lovers, and a partridge in a pear tree.

@up-side-down: Genuinely funny.
@HEM: you should probably qualify your statement by explaining that most of your friends like to get into very small planes and do very scary things. Or something like that.
@Sin: Following on from the above comment, yes she was. It was her third solo flight. Cause of crash still unexplained.

Not at all funny


What "scary things" do you believe my friends do in small planes?

The ex-girlfriend was first officer on a Metroliner flying into Duesseldorf airport when it got apparently struck by lightening and broke up in the air. 20 years ago.