Says Pilots Should Be Better Trained In High Sink Rate Awareness, Bounce Recovery

The NTSB on Tuesday sent two recommendations to the FAA concerning Boeing's MD-11.

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In the document, the board recommended that the FAA require Boeing to revise its MD-11 Flight Crew Operating Manual to reemphasize high sink rate awareness during landing, the importance of momentarily maintaining landing pitch attitude after touchdown and using proper pitch attitude and power to cushion excess sink rate in the flare, and to go around in the event of a bounced landing.

Once Boeing has completed the revision of its MD-11 Flight Crew Operating Manual as recommended in Safety Recommendation A-11-68, require all MD-11 operators to incorporate the Boeing-recommended bounce recognition and recovery procedure in their operating manuals and in recurrent simulator training.

The recommendations stem from an accident on July 27, 2010, in which a Boeing MD-11F equipped with General Electric CF6-80C2 engines, German registration D-ALCQ, operated by Lufthansa Cargo as flight 8460, caught fire after a hard landing at King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (RUH). The airplane bounced twice, experiencing a strong pitch up after the second hard touchdown, followed by strong nose-down pitch forces and vertical loads at the third and final touchdown that caused the fuselage to rupture. The two pilots, who were the only airplane occupants, were transported to the hospital with injuries. The airplane was destroyed. The flight was a scheduled cargo flight from Frankfurt, Germany, (FRA) to RUH.

According to the recommendation letter, although it is not uncommon for jet transport aircraft to experience a small skip or bounce during landing, since it was entered into service in 1990, the MD-11 has had at least 14 events of such severity that the aircraft sustained substantial damage, including 4 events that were complete hull losses. Seven of these events have taken place in the last 2 years. The number and severity of these events raise concerns that MD-11 flight crews are not effectively trained to recognize and arrest high sink rates during landing or to properly control pitch attitude following a hard landing.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletters/2011/A-11-068-069.pdf