Aircraft 'Heavy' Passenger Jet Landing in 150 MPH Gusting Cross Wind

[Marc]

This was almost unbelievable. As a pilot, 'Go Arounds' are rare, and when they happen it's always a serious, 'moment of truth' incident. Talk about adrenalin...

I totally freaked out when I saw this. A beautiful recovery from a Life - Death situation. I thought I had seen some serious situations (like landing with one of the landing gear indicator lights not indicating DOWN and LOCKED). This was amazing... Cross wind landings in small aircraft are one thing. In an airplane this big, one rarely sees such a pronounced effect. But 150 mph gusts? Unbelievable they even attempted to land. The article says:

Originally Posted by Huffington

Lufthansa jet, flying from Munich to Hamburg with 137 passengers, veering back and forth in 150 mile per hour gusting winds.

Aircraft 'Heavy' Passenger Jet Landing in Cross Wind.flv

This is a Flash file. If it doesn't play for you in your browser, download it and use VLC (The Best 'Plays Everything' Player there is!).

[Ajit Basrur]

I saw this on CNN this morning - amazing. In fact, when one passenger was see narrating the incident, I could sense the Life and Death sitaution from his face.

Great job done by the pilot that saved 137 lives.

[andygr]

The 150 miles per hour is a bit off
They reported up to 94KM/H or about 60mph winds around 2pm in HAM. No info yet on exactly how bad the winds did get but the pictures show it was bad enough.
A realy bad situation cover 2 differant aircraft doing a crabwalk not to mention all those pilots that wound up diverting that day
An A320 cliped off its wing tip. Have a link to a picture of the actual impact
Aircraft Wing Tip Hits Ruway

Here is a link to other clips of the same situation seen at various other locations and with other aircraft (Videos). http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f78_1184881277

They actual test for this during aircraft qualification.

[Marc]

Excellent. I know for small planes I flew 30 mph cross winds were 'interesting', to say the least. 'Slip' (aka 'crab') and try to straighten out right as you hit the cement and retract flaps at the same time. The problem came in where you seriously 'predicted' a potential 'Go Around', because you wanted those flap positions if you had to go around. You dump (retract) flaps to make the aircraft 'less flyable' with respect to speed when you hit the runway.

[DsqrdDGD909]

How was the video captured. Another plane? Passenger?

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Yes, I saw that film yesterday. Whew... That was probably about as close as you can possibly get without actually ending up in a prang. Well done by the pilots to get out of such a sticky situation, but I also have to say that I think they should have aborted earlier than they actually did.

Btw: This must be very rare these days, what with all those technical whiz things around to assist the flight crew, but a few weeks ago I experienced an aborted landing for the first time in many years. The man in the front office made no attemt to explain it away: He told us straight out that he had bungled the landing by coming in too high and too fast... He also aborted early, which I find commendable.

Originally Posted by DsqrdDGD909

How was the video captured. Another plane? Passenger?

It looks to me as if someone on the ground did it.

/Claes

[Le Chiffre]

Makes you wonder why these planes don't have all-wheel steering, then it could land crab-fashion and continue it's way down the runway with the nose still pointing into the apparent wind.

[andygr]

The guys getting these pictures are refered to as "plane spotters" they hang out at airports to capture pictures of the types of aircraft, paint schemes and when they know conditions are like they had reported looking for that "exciting" shot.