Monday, March 3, 2008

Almost a "final flight" of a different kind!


Following my Weekend Wings "Final Flight" post yesterday, I noted this near-disastrous cross-wind landing by a Lufthansa Airbus A320 at Munich on Saturday, March 1.





Damn, that was close! That was almost a "final flight" right there! Kudos to the pilot for getting out of that mess intact.

Peter

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

YIKES!
i wonder what the next approach looked like-! Seems like he had a decent final but got blown off the runway centerline at the last minute, and tried to correct by slipping even more and was unable to get straightened out in time. Did the wing tip hit or was that my imagination?

Crucis said...

Airlines like to "crab", that is off-set the nose in a cross-wind landing. This keeps the plane level and doesn't spill the drinks that the stews haven't yet gathered.

Better would be to "slip" if possible. A slip keeps the nose aligned with the runway by keeping one wing down and opposite rudder. The down side of this is that the cabin tilts in the direction of the wind, and you may not have enough rudder to compensate with the drift.

When that happens, you need to divert to an airport with a better runway/wind alignment.

Anonymous said...

yeah, his wingtip did hit the runway. I saw a still of the actual contact. I think it was on the DC-Pilots mailing list.