The Anonymous Widower

This Wasn’t News Just Good Airmanship

I found this article on the Daily Mail website. The headline is alarming.

Look away now if you don’t like flying: The terrifying moment a plane came in sideways as Britain is battered by 70mph gales

But the pilot just flew the plane, how it was designed to be handled in the circumstances.

I’ve only ever been a passenger once, when an airliner landed in a severe crosswind and that was coming back from India quite a few years ago on a Thai Airlines Boeing 747. The pilot made one approach at Heathrow and then asked for permission to land on the cross runway 23, which has now been removed. The landing was rough and a bit bumpy, but safe. There were a few screams.

The Boeing 737 in the picture is showing what happens in a text book crosswind landing.

I think people don’t realise how manoeuvrable most airliners are. Remember too on landing the weight is low, as a lot of fuel has been burned up and they still have full power to if necessary climb away safely and go to another airport, where conditions are better.

Perhaps the most famous crosswind landing was performed by Captain Eric Moody in the Jakarta Incident.  Although it technically wasn’t a genuine crosswind landing, it probably used similar flying techniques.  A British Airways Boeing 747 had lost all power because it flew through clouds of volcanic ash.  Three engines were restarted, but when it came to landing at Jakarta airport, Captain Moody found that some of the navigation aids on the ground had failed and he had no forward vision, as the volcanic ash had etched the windscreen so it was opaque. By effectively bringing the aircraft in to the runway slightly sideways he could get limited forward vision through the undamaged side window of the cockpit. At the last moment he straightened everything up and landed. Captain Moody described the approach like this.

a bit like negotiating one’s way up a badger’s arse

But it was a genuine case of all’s well that ends well.

One of the reason, I don’t fly with Air Neck End and their ilk, is you can’t be sure of their pilots. I’ve never had any problems with any British, Dutch, Scandinavian or Irish airlines in Europe, but there are some national carriers I just won’t fly.

In my own flying, I only ever had to perform, one extremely difficult landing and that was at Cardiff Airport, where the wind was gusting over fifty knots. but at least it was virtually straight down the runway. It was raining very heavily and the cloud base was about eight hundred feet. I was in my Cessna 340A twin and the aircraft in front was a Boeing 737, that because of the rain and strong wind, was having difficulty keeping the engines alight. I did a very good landing in the circumstances and seem to remember that I cheated by putting the plane down straight into the wind, rather than due straight down the runway. But then Cardiff is a big, wide runway!

April 18, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Flying, Volcanoes, Weather