‘Shocking’ Touchdowns

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recommendations. The fuselage broke apart, and the two pilots — the only people in the air plane — were injured, one seriously. Investiga tion of the accident is continuing.
The captain later told accident investigators that he considered the airplane’s behavior after touchdown “shocking” and “much beyond [his] experience,” the NTSB said.
Information from the flight data recorder showed that the airplane first touched down at
2.1 g — 2.1 times standard gravitational accel eration. Then the airplane bounced about 4.7 ft
(1.4 m) and touched down again at 3 g.
“After the second touchdown, the aircraft reached a pitch attitude of 13 degrees, and a third touchdown, on the main gear, exceeded 4 g,” the NTSB said. “Flight data indicated that two large forward and aft control column inputs were made between the first touchdown and the third and final touchdown.”
In later discussions with accident investigators, the captain said he had not expected the “strong movement of the nose” and that the airplane’s pitch attitude was “higher than the maximum al lowable and outside of his comfort zone.”
The captain also said that, although he had been trained to maintain 7.5 degrees of pitch in recovering from a bounced landing, he had not completed Lufthansa Cargo’s “bounced landing recovery procedure training,” a one-time course that was developed because of the company’s experience — and the experiences of other operators — with hard landings in MD-11s. The first officer had completed the

The NTSB says pilots need better training to avoid unexpected bounced landings in MD-11s.
. Chris Sorensen Photography
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one-time course in 2010 while he was undergo-ing his initial training.
During the course, pilots are taken to a sim-
ulator, where an instructor demonstrates a hard
landing. The pilot trainee then takes control and
“maintains 7.5 degrees of pitch and applies go-
around thrust to recover,” the NTSB said.
Lufthansa Cargo’s top pilots said after the ac-cident that the simulator course had limitations.
“The company’s MD-11 chief flight instruc-
tor stated that the simulator was limited in its
ability to capture the true sensation of a bounced
landing, and the head of flight operations said
that, while bounced landing training was positive
training, it may still be difficult for a pilot to rec-
ognize a bounce in a real aircraft,” the NTSB said.
A similar accident — the March 23, 2009,
crash of a FedEx MD-11 at Narita International
Airport in Japan — also remains under inves-
tigation by the Japan Transport Safety Board
(JTSB). Both pilots — the only people in the
airplane — were killed, and the airplane was
destroyed by the crash and the subsequent fire.
The NTSB, which is participating in the ac-cident investigation, said that information from
The investigation
the flight data recorder and the airport’s localizer
is continuing into
surveillance camera showed that the airplane
the crash of this
“bounced after touching down initially on the right
Lufthansa Cargo
main landing gear and subsequently bounced once
MD-11F in July 2010
more before the left wing … fractured and the
in Riyadh, Saudi
airplane rolled over to the left and caught fire.”
Arabia. The fuselage
“The vertical acceleration at initial touch-
broke apart after a
down was 1.63 g, followed by acceleration as high
bounced landing.
. Associated Press
as 3.06 g when the airplane touched down on the nose landing gear following the last bounce.”
A JTSB interim report, released in April 2010, said that the examination of a number of operations and human performance issues — conducted in cooperation with the NTSB — included a review of MD-11 handling charac-teristics. The report noted that interviews had indicated that the MD-11 is faster on approach and “less forgiving than other large airplanes” and that pilots must “remain more alert on the MD-11 than on other airplanes.”1
Seven Events in Two Years
In its safety recommendation letter, the NTSB acknowledged that it is “not uncommon for jet transport aircraft to experience a small skip or bounce during landing.” Nevertheless, the NTSB added, MD-11s have been involved in 14 such events since the aircraft entered service in 1990 (Table 1, p. 15). Of the 14 events, seven occurred in the past two years.
“The number and severity of these events raise concerns that MD-11 flight crews are not ef-fectively trained to recognize and arrest high sink rates during landing or to properly control pitch attitude following a hard landing,” the NTSB said.
In a report on an earlier MD-11 landing accident, the NTSB noted the MD-11’s “known tendency to pitch up” after deployment of ground spoilers and suggested that “a reduction or elimination of the pitch-up tendency would simplify MD-11 landing techniques and may help prevent future MD-11 landing incidents and accidents.”2
In its July safety recommendation letter, the NTSB noted that the Boeing MD-11 FCOM recommends a sink rate of 2 to 4 fps during the landing flare, and that the airplanes are certified to land at maximum landing weight with a sink rate of 10 fps (600 fpm) and “an ultimate sink rate of 12.3 fps.”
The NTSB added, “Boeing defines hard landings that exceed 12.3 fps or that involve rapid derotation [lowering the nosewheel to the runway after the main gear touches down] after the initial touchdown as severe.”
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Instructions in the FCOM say, “If the air-craft should bounce,

MD-11 Severe Hard Landings 
Date  Location  Operator  Event 

hold or re-establish a normal landing atti-tude and add thrust as necessary to control the rate of descent. Avoid rapid pitch rates in establishing a normal landing attitude. Caution: Tail strikes or nosewheel structural damage can occur if large forward or aft control column movements are made prior to touchdown.”

Timing the Flare

Apr. 30, 1993  Los Angeles 
Aug. 19, 1994  Chicago 
July 31, 1997  Newark 
Aug. 22, 1999  Hong Kong 
May 22, 2000  Taipei, Taiwan 
Nov. 20, 2001  Taipei, Taiwan 
June 7, 2005  Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. 
March 23, 2009  Tokyo 
June 3, 2009  Urumqi, China 
June 9, 2009  Khartoum, Sudan 
Sept 13, 2009  Mexico City 
Oct. 20, 2009  Montevideo, Uruguay 
July 27, 2010  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 
Sept. 22, 2010  Kabul, Afghanistan 

Source: U.S. National Transportation Safety Board
Table 1
Delta Air Lines Alitalia FedEx China Airlines Eva Air Eva Air UPS FedEx China Cargo Saudi Arabian Airlines Lufthansa Cargo Centurion Lufthansa Cargo World Airways Bounced hard landing Landing bounce and porpoise Wing spar break and rollover Wing spar break and rollover Hard landing and go around Bounce and nose landing gear (NLG) strike Hard NLG strike Wing spar break and rollover Hard landing and tail strike Hard landing Hard landing and NLG strike Hard landing and main landing gear collapse Hard landing and fuselage failure Hard NLG strike
The NTSB said that some operators have provided specific instruc-tions to their pilots aimed at helping them avoid high sink rates through “appropriate combina-tions of power and pitch” and appropriate tim-ing of the landing flare.
As examples, the NTSB noted that:
.  Lufthansa Cargo includes in its MD-11
training information a table that “guides pilots when to commence the flare based on gross weight, temperature and pressure altitude.”
. 
UPS information suggests that the air-speed trend vector “may be a useful tool” in determining when to begin to flare.

. 
FedEx, which operates more MD-11s than

any other airline, tells its pilots to pay particular attention to “aural altitude calls and [the] radar altimeter.”
“Although the pilot monitoring also has a role in recognizing and responding to high sink rates — for example, calling out the sink rate and calling for a go-around — the ability to appropriately judge when to initiate the flare is a fundamental pilot skill that is learned in training and checked periodically,” the NTSB said.
In reviewing the circumstances surround-ing the events cited in Table 1, the NTSB noted that several were associated with high sink rates at touchdown. For example, the Aug. 22, 1999, accident involved a China Airlines MD-11 that developed a high sink rate before touchdown at Hong Kong International Airport. In an attempt to counteract the sink rate, the captain used “a large elevator input, resulting in destructive force on the structure at touchdown,” the NTSB said.
Of the 315 people in the airplane, three were killed, 50 were seriously injured and 153 received minor injuries, the Civil Aviation De-partment of Hong Kong said in its final report on the accident. The report said that investiga-tors identified the cause of the accident as “the commander’s inability to arrest the high rate of descent existing at 50 ft radio altitude.”3
The NTSB cited the June 9, 2009, severe hard landing of a Saudi Arabian MD-11 in Khartoum, Sudan, in which the “sink rate” alert from the airplane’s enhanced ground proxim-ity warning system sounded repeatedly, from the time the airplane descended through 100 ft
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above ground level until touchdown, which was recorded at 3.06 g.

Rapid Derotation
Rapid derotation also has been a factor in a num-ber of MD-11 hard landing accidents, the NTSB said, citing the July 31, 1997, FedEx accident in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., in which the captain “initiated a rapid nose-down elevator input within 0.5 second following initial touchdown, resulting in a second touchdown that exceeded the airplane’s design structural limits.”4
IntheJune7,2005,accidentinvolvingaUPS MD-11 in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., the pilot “moved the control column forward sharply follow-ing the initial touchdown, reducing pitch angle from 5 degrees nose up to 1 degree nose down in 1.5 sec-onds,” the NTSB said. The subsequent touchdown on the nosewheel was measured at 2.5 g.
As a result of its investigation of the Newark accident, the NTSB recommended in 2000 that the FAA establish a government–industry task force to develop a pilot training tool including a syllabus for simulator training in stabilized approaches, and techniques for recognizing and recovering from high sink rates, overcontrol in pitch and premature derotation.
The FAA subsequently issued an appendix to Advisory Circular 120-71, “Standard Operating Procedures for Flight Deck Crew Members,” and Flight Standards Information Bulletins for Air Transport (FSATs) 00-08 and 00-12 to discuss stabilized approaches and reduction of approach and landing accidents.
“Despite the corrective action … MD-11 crews continue to have difficulty in judging the flare maneuver and in making appropriate pitch and power changes after hard landings,” the NTSB said. “The frequency of MD-11 hard landing accidents suggests that generic guidance on these concepts is not sufficient or effective.”
The NTSB said that “enhanced operational guidance and recurrent training will provide near-term improvements that reduce the risk of MD-11 landing accidents,” while the board continues to identify and evaluate factors that contribute to the accidents. 
Notes
1.  
JTSB. The Interim Report of Aircraft Accident Investigation. <www.mlit.go.jp/jtsb/eng-air_report/ N526FE.pdf>. April 16, 2010.

2.  
NTSB. Aircraft Accident Report NTSB/AAR-00/02,

Crash During Landing; Federal Express Inc., McDonnell Douglas MD-11, N611FE; Newark International Airport, Newark, New Jersey; July 31, 1997.
3.  
Civil Aviation Department of Hong Kong. Aircraft Accident Report 1/2004, Report on the Accident to Boeing MD11, B-150, at Hong Kong International Airport on 22 August 1999. December 2004.

4.  
NTSB. Accident Report no. DCA97MA055. July 31, 1997. The flight crew and three other FedEx employees received minor injuries in the crash or while exiting the airplane through a cockpit window to escape from a fire that destroyed the airplane. The NTSB said the probable cause of the accident was the captain’s “overcontrol of the airplane during the landing and his failure to execute a go-around from a destabilized flare.”

 

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