Federal Express MD-11 Crash at Tokyo's Narita Airport

Dramatic video shows the landing that led to the fiery crash of a Fed Ex MD-11 cargo jet a few hours ago at Tokyo's Narita Airport. The video shows what appears to be a hard, bounced landing. Shortly after the bounce, the nose of the aircraft appears lower than the tail as the aircraft contacts the runway a second time. Moments later, huge flames erupt destroying the aircraft. Pilot Kevin Kyle Mosley and copilot Anthony Stephen Pino were killed.

Winds were reportedly high at the time, so it's hard to know for sure whether...

the sequence shown is totally a result of actions of the pilot, or whether the winds contributed to the accident. However, the sequence seems to show a classic error associated with bounced landings. 

Handling a Bounced Landing

According to the FAA's Airplane Flying Handbook, "The corrective action for a bounce is the same as for ballooning and similarly depends on its severity. When it is very slight and there is no extreme change in the airplane’s pitch attitude, a follow-up landing may be executed by applying sufficient power to cushion the subsequent touchdown, and smoothly adjusting the pitch to the proper touchdown attitude.

"When a bounce is severe, the safest procedure is to EXECUTE A GO-AROUND IMMEDIATELY. No attempt to salvage the landing should be made. Full power should be applied while simultaneously maintaining directional control, and lowering the nose to a safe climb attitude. The go-around procedure should be continued even though the airplane may descend and another bounce may be encountered. It would be extremely foolish to attempt a landing from a bad bounce since airspeed diminishes very rapidly in the nose-high attitude, and a stall may occur before a subsequent touchdown could be made."

A few years ago, one of the local flying clubs where I teach analyzed their incidents and concluded that fully 70% of them would have been avoided had the pilot initiated a timely go-around. CFIs were directed to instruct clients to initiate a go around whenever they had a bad landing, rather than try to salvage every landing. After this change, the number of incidents dropped off sharply.

The discussion led me to re-examine how I teach landings. I realized that I too had fallen into the trap of teaching pilots how to salvage most bad landings. Yet teaching a go around as a primary response to a botched landing can save bending a lot of metal.

Comments

[AirShowFan]

Interesting how closely this matches an earlier accident:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0UBT/is_31_14/ai_63805245

[go around]

Not to take anything away from the above said but to shine a brighter light on this very situation: there might be a little bit more to the story taking the particular type of aircraft into account. It seems it is rather unstable (intentionally designed for economic efficiency) which is especially true on approach and at high altitude.

http://www.airlinesafety.com/faq/faq9.htm
(the last paragraph in bold)

http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/sr111/forbidding.html

[Max Trescott]

Thanks for posting the link. I'm sure there's a lot more to the story. My intent was to use one aspect of the story--the bounced landing--as a way to highlight proper technique for all pilots.

[Chris Dennis]

Not to distract from what has been presented, but I think at the time of first contact with the ground, the engines were already pulled to idle. The pilots were committed to landing and go around probably was not an option at that moment. Seems the correction to the bounce was extreme as the aircraft landed on nose gear first then left main. Having flown the DC10 (similar to MD11) for many years, it can be dicey with strong crosswinds. With the winds reported, Vref+20 was most likely used, and a carrier landing is a technique to get it on the ground. But if you bounce it, that extra 20kts, and engines idle, will take you on a ride that.....

FWIW

cld