oh... my... god...

i may have actually just died from a heart attack...

lufthansa airplane in extreme winds trying to land

the story

W O W!!

I don't know if they are heroes for not crashing or nuts for even trying to come in crabbing like like. Glad everyone is OK. Is there a certain 'type' of person who comes to the airports on windy/stormy days with video cameras?

That footage is incredible!! It bothers me such stupidity in apparent lack of concern for the people on board to try and land in such circumstances.

that was rather... scary.. and i wasn't even on the plane!

I would have been freaking out if I was on that plane!!!

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/39256/crosswinds/

They actually certify the A/C to land in conditions like this. These are all flown by company test pilots. The filed is someplace in South America that is know for it's strong crosswinds.

My dad sent me a link to that video earlier today. For some reason both the video page and story page keep killing safari. Worked fine in firefox but cnn must not like safari.

Anyway, about the video, I've made a few crosswind landings. Not anything that strong, though. And I was in a high wing Cessna, so no wing tip strikes. Its a pretty weird feeling flying crooked like that.

Wonderful. Flying Lufthansa through Frankfurt and into Milan in a week and a half :/

At least they landed alright.

Crosswind landings like that are definitely nothing new. look it up on youtube and you'll find plenty. It looks like the problem was they got a last-second huge gust right before touching down.

That said, I'm sure everyone on board about died. They aren't kidding when they tell you to fasten your seatbelt, folks!! I bet some idiot who thinks he doesn't have to put his seatbelt on got thrown out of his seat onto someone who follows the rules.

Good lord. And the plane is back in service. According one of the other CNN videos, there was an active runway headed into the wind, versus the one the plane tried to use at first.

That was a good recovery. I'm impressed too that the plane, an A320, was able to recover and get aloft so quickly.

Kudos to the pilot for keeping his cool.

Would that we could all fly in calm weather....

technologist said:

Would that we could all fly in calm weather....

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would indead... wait what?

wow... and they attempted though! you could see that it was blowing around alot in the first place why even try!?

srmorris2 said:

wow... and they attempted though! you could see that it was blowing around alot in the first place why even try!?

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What goes up MUST come down....

srmorris2 said:

wow... and they attempted though! you could see that it was blowing around alot in the first place why even try!?

Click to expand...

The wind is almost never going to be perfectly along the runway, so you learn how to land in crosswinds. Most major airports, Hamburg included, have runways in multiple directions, generally aligned with dominant winds.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...858&spn=0.049164,0.128231&t=h&z=13&iwloc=addr

The problem is that an airport is "configured" for its operations based primarily on prevailing winds. Approaches and departures are run based on that. To change an airport's configuration - to make a runway inactive and/or make another runway active requires time. In the US it can take 20 to 30 minutes to reconfigure an airport because of approach procedures and aircraft en route to arrival fixes based on the current configuration. In Europe, while Eurocontrol manages air traffic control, they have other issues of national frontiers. Reconfigure an airport, and a flight's approach may suddenly be over a different country.

If I was the Lufthansa pilot, I'd have wanted to kick the controller's butt for that. Still, the pilot has final say as to what he does. "Clear to land" means you have permission, but it doesn't mean you can or should.

Sherman Homan said:

I don't know if they are heroes for not crashing or nuts for even trying to come in crabbing like like. Glad everyone is OK. Is there a certain 'type' of person who comes to the airports on windy/stormy days with video cameras?

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yeah, they are called news crews when there is a major storm and a big airport

Woah, hectic... glad that wasn't me.

Wow!!!!!!!!