Emirates A380 Jet Nearly Loses Directional Control In Windy Landing

Looks to me the aircraft went light on the first touch which meant the normal corrective action was overly exaggerated, thus requiring the numerous corrective actions to straighten the alignment.
Testament to the undercarriage strength, the tyres must have taken a massive amount of lateral force.

Is it my imagination, or does that whale look quite angry by the time it reached the end?

Holy Guacamole! Good for Captain Ahab! But I agree his rudder technique may not have been optimum. As a DER who has done repairs on Airbus landing gear, I would hope for a THOROUGH inspection of not only the gear, but the entire airframe. Am I the only one that noticed the Mambo the horiz was doing at the end of the rollout?

My first reaction to seeing that was "Mama Mia" Apologies to the Italians for that. That must have been one hell of a ride back in the tail.

As a former Flight Attendant, I can assure you there was a lot of screaming in terror going on down the back. Been in a similar situation a few times myself.

Kudos to the pilots! No engine strikes or anything like that! The pax in the back must have thought the end was nigh!!

Looked up Crosswind landing on YOUTUBE. First video was Emirates 777. Not too good!!! Is there a systemic training issue for this airline?

Wonder if anyone inside the plane recorded the landing? People would have likely had their phones ready for arrival, so to switch to video mode would be logical.

Eeek! One puckers tightly just watching. Does that landing further the cause for development of more human-replacement automation?

Given the lineage of the A380 (A300 in particular), they were lucky the the vertical stabilizer didn't snap off as a result of the over control of the rudder (AA587 comes to mind).

Pilot should have done a go around!

NBC news showed the approach at a very fast speed and the plane was like a fish flopping around out of water. Don,t know if was an error, act of stupidity, or just another shot at making the news sensational.

What we see here is a lack of basic flying skills, regardless of the size of the plane, combined with a demonstration of just how effective the air rudder is - even at low speeds. Regrettably this is common among pilots who drive these planes with a high level of automation.

Secondly, the whole landing looks unstable without a clear concept of how the wind is affecting the aircraft on short final. When you reach this point, all you have to do is straighten it out SMOOTHLY with the rudder. There is a risk with the big jets that you can catch a wingtip or an engine cowl in a wing-down landing; that's why they land level and kick straight.

Back to school, guys (gals).

How much of a delay is there between when the pilot makes a rudder command and the plane acts on it? Moving a runner that size takes some time, but how much? How much computer control is typically used during a landing like this?

There's mostly critical comments aimed at the flight crew. I'm wondering whatever happened to the "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing."

Except for a love of flight, I'll raise my hand as the least knowledgeable of anyone on this board, from a technical perspective, but I have to imagine that it's the enormous surface area of this monster that gives the wind so very much to work with, that causes this drama. Have to imagine that a smaller machine, with the wind grabbing on to less, has an easier go of it. I mean, what are we talking about there, five stories of surface area? And, yes, as said elsewhere, kudos to the crew for the skillful wrestle.

That kick from crabbed to nose-straight, wingtip down into wind has always been a challenge for me. Although when you get it perfect and grease it in on the upwind main gear, then gently transition back to wings level, nose gear on the centerline, there's no better feeling!

I am still pondering the role, (if any), that the "fly by wire" control logic may have played in this landing?

Watching the rudder surfaces deflection during approach, only the bottom half was making full deflections. If you watch the upper half right at the moment of first wheel contact with the runway, and at the moment the right landing gear compresses, the upper half makes its first full deflection, significantly increasing yaw.

The question in my mind is was this purely the result of increased pilot input or did the control logic law make an adjustment in control surface output based on its sensing runway contact?

I don't know the exact number of sensors that make up the control logic response algorithm, speed, angle of attack, thrust, landing gear squat switches(?), but I do know as configuration changes are sensed, control deflection limits change. This control law algorithm acts as a filter to the pilot commanded control inputs and might add or subtract actual surface deflections given a specific stick and rudder pedal deflection but measured against differing configurations.

Did the control law encounter an edge condition that instead of protecting against, ended up amplifying?

Whatever that was I just witnessed I can tell you that Aircraft...is ROBUST! It looked like one of my landings in my 172 trainer...which takes a beating (just like that)

amazing

.A good reference was on FedfEx accident in Narita、On March 23, 2009, they were in the similar gusty wind condition on approach runway 34L.

Would've been a bit frightening for the passengers, extremely poor technique of the pilot caused that. Unfortunately the way new pilots are trained and their over reliance on technology we will see more problems and more accidents in the future.

Would hate to be a passenger sitting at the tail end. Heck, after watching that I need Dramamine.

I'm sure cabin clean-up was fun. Been through some rough landings but nothing like that!

Jesus Mary and Joseph, they probably had to replace a few pax seats as well as the pilots'.

Who is flling that critter? Auto pilot or human?

same aircraft as this http://avherald.com/h?article=4a0e137b
Nov 2016 landing with left wing gear retracted.

Look at him fanning that rudder. Wow!

As a pilot of smaller planes, typical crosswind approaches is crabbing on short final. Then slip to touch down the runway. The slip will normally have one of the main wheels touch the runway first to counteract the crabbing inertia. By crabbing, is the noise of airplane pointing towards the wind, but over the runway, don't want to touchdown sideways.

Now sure, but I think the B-52 was designed to land at a crabbing posture...

Anyway, looks like an over correction when the pilot "tried" to slip the touchdown, was painful to watch. But, look at crosswind landings on youtube, I see many airliners touchdown while crabbing!

Fast and Furious 8. A380 Drift!

The A380 has a computer between pilot and all control surfaces. It appeared to me that the rudder went from single panel deflection to dual panel deflection coinciding with wheel touchdown which greatly increased deflection force. While i have no insight into the changes in control logic this might cause, I would be interested in hearing from someone who does. i.e did the control rules change on the pilots at an inopportune moment or did the pilot directly command that change though a change in control force input?

OMG, that's brutal.

Guess that bus is built stronger than it looks. wow.

OMHeck! I didn't know the big ones could get that squirelly! Yikes.

Could someone explain what error the pilot made? I found the three cross wind landing types. To this n00b it appears to be a crab landing with a possible de-crab intention. Please correct me if I'm wrong. The rudder is used to align the plane with the runway but even after watching several youtube clips I'm unable to spot the error. Genuine question, engineer level but I'm not a pilot.

Under the circumstances this might be the best possible outcome....

Having said that the pilot had two choices and split the difference and that made the situation worse. The choices were 1) land the aircraft in the crab. Since the center of gravity is forward of the landing gear the forward momentum would have straightened the aircraft out with no control inputs from the pilot. There would have been some nose movements back and forth but far less than what was experienced (if one watches the vast number of crosswind landings in large aircraft this is what is generally done) -or- 2) transition to a slight slip. The pilot straighten the nose but did not simultaneously lower the right wing. Lowering it 5-10 degrees and allowing touchdown on the right gear followed by the left gear would have made the transition smoother.

A perfectly executed crab approach / transition to a slip upon flare crosswind landing is a thing of beauty. Tried to locate a video but this was the best I could find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NACXVZXeYU


And for those "experienced" pilots who are generally trained to land in the crab in crosswind conditions and say this just can't be done with a large aircraft I beg you to go back and get some training.....

ATP/CFI/CFI-AI/CFI-MEI/6,00+ hours +numerous type ratings.....

Worst landing decision I've seem by a large wide body crew. It was unstabilized, obviously that should have diverted to alternate airport. That airframe needs serious inspections..

Never flown a tailwheel has he?

Yeah, the fact that the guy was using massive amounts of rudder to track the centerline at 500' agl tells you all that you need to know. Pretty terrible technique.

Every time I watch this, I get the song "You can Always Go Around" in my head.....

Pathetic, disgusting, and embarrassing to anyone who knows how to fly properly.

The runway appears to be wet, so that lessened the side load on the under carriage.

I think this video is slightly exaggerated by the zoom on the camera, but still a pretty crazy crosswinds landing!!! I wonder if this is an example of from a C172 in flight school straight to an A380 special???!!!

Third World Airline Pilots: They can memorize the entire flight manual verbatim, but you cannot teach all of them how to fly. Passengers: you get what you pay for.

If you're one of those douche bags who refuse to wear your seatbelt, you would be painted all over the interior on that landing!

Pick up the ATIS. Reject runway assignment if the crosswond compenent exceeds your ability. Land into the wind. Basic flying.

The cushion seat is a weird if he managed to break that.

Another poorly written article by the media, preceded by a poorly executed landing. Champagne all around!

I'll never fly with those rookies!!!!

The Airbus has some computer inputs to help the pilot fly. If you remember these it works beautifully, if not (this case) not so much.

What's the big deal? If there is any aircraft built that can't handle a landing like that, it should never have done a takeoff roll in the first place.

You don't know how many times he went around already, he may have had no choice - You after the fact I wasn't flying evaluators