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View Full Version : VERY Bumpy Landing by a Korean 777-300 at NRT



Matt Molnar
2010-06-01, 01:10 PM
TKCoka6mPRQ

USAF Pilot 07
2010-06-01, 05:34 PM
I saw this on somebody's facebook yesterday (maybe yours). It almost looks fake (even though it's not). The aircraft appears pretty stable through short final, and then in the flare becomes extremely unstable.

Not sure if a gust of wind caught it (although it doesn't look all that windy), but it looks like the pilot flying applied too much right wing low too high to the ground causing the aircraft to touchdown really firm on the right mains, then he tried to overcompensate with the left aileron causing the right wing, aided by whatever crosswind there was, to lift up.

What really gets me is how it keeps on bouncing for a while until finally getting all mains on the ground. Definitely looks like a pilot induced oscillation.

PhilDernerJr
2010-06-01, 05:37 PM
How would he have better corrected sooner in that situation?

USAF Pilot 07
2010-06-01, 06:18 PM
The winds in this case - based on the windsock - looked fairly calm (10 knots at most). In fact it looks almost like a cornering tailwind, although still very slight. This may explain and most likely plays a part in why they appear to float the landing. It looks like they start the flare around the 11 second mark and kind of hold it around 10-20 feet until the right wing drops around 15 seconds.

After they touch down on the left for the first time, they put it back down on right and it appears that both main gear are on the ground but then a second later the right kicks back up again and then the bouncing continues. The aircraft must have been pretty unstable, and it definitely appears to have been caused by some sort of PIO.

Two options:

First: Go around. I'm sure bitching betty was screaming "bank angle" in the flare. Nothing wrong with taking it around rather than getting into this kind of PIO.

Second: Looks like after they touch down so wing low on the right main, the pilot over corrects and applies too much left aileron which just makes the problem worse.

They say "fly the aircraft to a positive touchdown". Once landing "firm" on the right he could have eased up on the right wing low/returned the ailerons to a neutral position letting the left wing come down and then once both mains were firmly on the ground and the spoilers came out fully re-applied the crosswind controls (even though very little looked necessary). It appears that he's all over the place with the aileron correcting too late and putting too much in.

Of course, it's always easy to second guess a pilot or crew, and most likely there were other factors involved that we don't know about. Fortunately after bouncing for a while the aircraft became stabilized and the rest of the landing was uneventful.

Lastly, if this guy was a 777 pilot he was more than likely pretty experienced with tens of thousands of flight hours. Everyone has good and bad days, with good and bad landings. Unfortunately this was a bad day and landing for the pilot, that just happened to be captured on video. I'm not so sure the aircraft was ever in a "near crash" situation, and the landing may not even have been classified as hard.