Friday 7 March 2008

Hamburg International Airport - 1st of March 2008


A Lufthansa Airbus A320 on a flight from Munich to Hamburg hits the left wingtip and almost drags the right engine on runway 33 during extreme weather and gusting crosswinds caused by storm Emma.

Aircraft are certified to land in steady crosswinds and crews are trained for this and do practice maximum crosswind landings in the simulator several times per year. The crosswind component at the time was 90 kilometer-per-hour (56 miles per hour) which is within the croswind limitation of the aircraft. Storms like this one called "Emma" on the 1st of March 2008 with high winds and gusts are however very demanding on the crew.

Initially they had the required crab angle but during the transition from crab to slip (upwind wing has to be low) the plane caught a severe gust during the touchdown maneuver. The gust then lifted the wing leading the aircraft to roll to the left and drift across the runway. The only correct option at this point was to go around. They landed about 20 minutes later on a different runway without further incident. Over 70 flights were canceled in Frankfurt due to the storm Emma on 1st of March 2008.

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