Wild landing at Madeira 26/3/24
Discussion
F-Typo said:
Just seen this and I can offer some expert opinion having been a Madeira qualified captain for some 15+years.
To start with Madeira is a Category C airport which requires specific qualifications to operate in/ out off due to its complexity and wind ‘phenomena’. This consists of a simulator course specific to the airport, including a classroom brief (after several hours of personal home study), followed by the 4hr simulator session where you practice approaches, go-arounds, landings and take-offs with varying levels of wind, crosswind, wind shear and everything else that Madeira can throw at you! After successful completion you then need to visit the airport with a suitably qualified Training Captain. Once signed off for the airport visit you are then qualified to operate there as the aircraft commander.
The Portuguese aviation authority sets out the training and qualification requirements which all operators must comply with. They also oversee operations there and are VERY strict regarding infringements, non-compliance with the rules and regs etc etc. And rightly so - Madeira can be benign on a lovely day but quite horrendous when the winds pick up.
The approaches to either end of the runway are by necessity (due to it sitting in a bay with steeply rising terrain to three sides) NOT straight in, like most airports. Because you cannot fly on an extended centreline straight in they don’t have any precision approach guidance (a localiser beam for lateral guidance and a glide path beam for vertical guidance to the touchdown point). They have non-precision approaches and the runway in that video is runway 05 which has a very curved, descending approach where the aeroplane only rolls out wings level about a mile from touchdown.
I moved on to longhaul in 2020 so no longer operate there, and since I moved on I know that my airline now has RNAV approaches approved for use, which are non-precision, but they do give lateral and vertical guidance based on GPS positioning. In my day you literally looked out the window and judged your descent path and turn with just a couple of guidance points with recommended heights to help you. On a turbulent day that is VERY tricky - the aeroplane is bouncing around all over and you are constantly adjusting the control column catching gusts which cause one wing to drop, the nose to rise/ fall and then adding/ reducing thrust to try to maintain the correct approach speed, which again can be fluctuating all over the place in the gusts.
To add to this, at either end of the runway there are valleys which run down the mountain sides and enter the sea literally at the runway thresholds. So, if you’ve managed to keep the aeroplane stabilised as you roll out of the turn on a 1nm final for runway 05, you can all of a sudden get a huge crosswind hitting the aeroplane from the left as the wind howls down that valley and across your path.
Then add in the fact the runway sits on the man-made plateau about 200ft above the sea and between 100ft and 50ft before touchdown you can get a massive updraft of wind which has hit the cliff and gone vertical. This will ‘balloon’ the aeroplane - you can see this happen to that TAP aircraft - he pushed the nose massively down as he comes over the runway, but the aeroplane doesn’t really descent at an increased rate despite this, because of the massive updraft.
So, onto that approach specifically. To me, he looks too high as he rolls out onto final approach. He’s fighting to get back on the profile but should have gone around before the runway threshold. He doesn’t. He continues, then gets the huge updraft as he crosses the cliff just before the numbers on the runway. He should be passing 50ft above the touch down elevation as he crosses the start of the runway. He is certainly higher than that. The painted markings on the runway are the touchdown zone markings. If he crossed the threshold at 50’ and had a stabilised 3° descent path, he should touchdown in the middle of the zone on the big markings. I’ve marked them in yellow here
He is still at approximately 30ft where he should be touching down. He still doesn’t go around. He’s got the red mist and is task saturated with trying really hard to land the thing. This is where a good Co-pilot should be calling ‘go-around’ as he has the extra capacity as he is not hand flying the aeroplane. I always used to brief my Co-pilots before the approach to call go-around at me if it was starting to look like this.
He now continues into the flare and starts to float. He’s getting towards the end of the touchdown zone. He pushing the nose down again to counteract the updrafts and noses right over. Again, he should be going around at that point - he is about to float out of the touchdown zone and is going to land halfway down the runway - any landing performance calculation is now negated - he is going to land well beyond where he should have touched down and the braking distance has been completely compromised. He still doesn’t go around.
He noses over once again and is about to touchdown on the nose gear first. He’s out of the touchdown zone and you DO NOT land nose-wheel first. The aeroplane is dangerously unstabilised and he should definitely be going around by now, but he doesn’t. The red mist has completely drowned him and he is absolutely determined to land. The Co-pilot should be shouting ‘go-around’ by now and even looking to take control the situation is becoming so dangerous. And here he is, out of the touchdown zone, nose down, about to touch nose wheel first. That’s shocking.
He’s now bounced and once again simply should go around. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t arrest the bounce and re-establish the correct touchdown pitch attitude and then lands AGAIN on the nose wheel first. He’s lucky it doesn’t fail.
He is nearly halfway down the runway and the aeroplane still hasn’t landed. He gets away with it. Luck rather than skill. And as for judgement….that’s completely lacking, as it would appear, is any intervention from the Co-pilot. That is pure speculation though as I can’t see or hear what the do-pilot was doing throughout. This crew should be pulled off Madeira until they have been retrained at the very least. Will they be? Who knows, it’s the national flag carrier of Portugal, at a Portuguese airport….
I just wanted to say thanks for such an interesting and detailed post. To start with Madeira is a Category C airport which requires specific qualifications to operate in/ out off due to its complexity and wind ‘phenomena’. This consists of a simulator course specific to the airport, including a classroom brief (after several hours of personal home study), followed by the 4hr simulator session where you practice approaches, go-arounds, landings and take-offs with varying levels of wind, crosswind, wind shear and everything else that Madeira can throw at you! After successful completion you then need to visit the airport with a suitably qualified Training Captain. Once signed off for the airport visit you are then qualified to operate there as the aircraft commander.
The Portuguese aviation authority sets out the training and qualification requirements which all operators must comply with. They also oversee operations there and are VERY strict regarding infringements, non-compliance with the rules and regs etc etc. And rightly so - Madeira can be benign on a lovely day but quite horrendous when the winds pick up.
The approaches to either end of the runway are by necessity (due to it sitting in a bay with steeply rising terrain to three sides) NOT straight in, like most airports. Because you cannot fly on an extended centreline straight in they don’t have any precision approach guidance (a localiser beam for lateral guidance and a glide path beam for vertical guidance to the touchdown point). They have non-precision approaches and the runway in that video is runway 05 which has a very curved, descending approach where the aeroplane only rolls out wings level about a mile from touchdown.
I moved on to longhaul in 2020 so no longer operate there, and since I moved on I know that my airline now has RNAV approaches approved for use, which are non-precision, but they do give lateral and vertical guidance based on GPS positioning. In my day you literally looked out the window and judged your descent path and turn with just a couple of guidance points with recommended heights to help you. On a turbulent day that is VERY tricky - the aeroplane is bouncing around all over and you are constantly adjusting the control column catching gusts which cause one wing to drop, the nose to rise/ fall and then adding/ reducing thrust to try to maintain the correct approach speed, which again can be fluctuating all over the place in the gusts.
To add to this, at either end of the runway there are valleys which run down the mountain sides and enter the sea literally at the runway thresholds. So, if you’ve managed to keep the aeroplane stabilised as you roll out of the turn on a 1nm final for runway 05, you can all of a sudden get a huge crosswind hitting the aeroplane from the left as the wind howls down that valley and across your path.
Then add in the fact the runway sits on the man-made plateau about 200ft above the sea and between 100ft and 50ft before touchdown you can get a massive updraft of wind which has hit the cliff and gone vertical. This will ‘balloon’ the aeroplane - you can see this happen to that TAP aircraft - he pushed the nose massively down as he comes over the runway, but the aeroplane doesn’t really descent at an increased rate despite this, because of the massive updraft.
So, onto that approach specifically. To me, he looks too high as he rolls out onto final approach. He’s fighting to get back on the profile but should have gone around before the runway threshold. He doesn’t. He continues, then gets the huge updraft as he crosses the cliff just before the numbers on the runway. He should be passing 50ft above the touch down elevation as he crosses the start of the runway. He is certainly higher than that. The painted markings on the runway are the touchdown zone markings. If he crossed the threshold at 50’ and had a stabilised 3° descent path, he should touchdown in the middle of the zone on the big markings. I’ve marked them in yellow here
He is still at approximately 30ft where he should be touching down. He still doesn’t go around. He’s got the red mist and is task saturated with trying really hard to land the thing. This is where a good Co-pilot should be calling ‘go-around’ as he has the extra capacity as he is not hand flying the aeroplane. I always used to brief my Co-pilots before the approach to call go-around at me if it was starting to look like this.He now continues into the flare and starts to float. He’s getting towards the end of the touchdown zone. He pushing the nose down again to counteract the updrafts and noses right over. Again, he should be going around at that point - he is about to float out of the touchdown zone and is going to land halfway down the runway - any landing performance calculation is now negated - he is going to land well beyond where he should have touched down and the braking distance has been completely compromised. He still doesn’t go around.
He noses over once again and is about to touchdown on the nose gear first. He’s out of the touchdown zone and you DO NOT land nose-wheel first. The aeroplane is dangerously unstabilised and he should definitely be going around by now, but he doesn’t. The red mist has completely drowned him and he is absolutely determined to land. The Co-pilot should be shouting ‘go-around’ by now and even looking to take control the situation is becoming so dangerous. And here he is, out of the touchdown zone, nose down, about to touch nose wheel first. That’s shocking.
He’s now bounced and once again simply should go around. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t arrest the bounce and re-establish the correct touchdown pitch attitude and then lands AGAIN on the nose wheel first. He’s lucky it doesn’t fail.
He is nearly halfway down the runway and the aeroplane still hasn’t landed. He gets away with it. Luck rather than skill. And as for judgement….that’s completely lacking, as it would appear, is any intervention from the Co-pilot. That is pure speculation though as I can’t see or hear what the do-pilot was doing throughout. This crew should be pulled off Madeira until they have been retrained at the very least. Will they be? Who knows, it’s the national flag carrier of Portugal, at a Portuguese airport….Would you say Madeira is the most challenging airport in Europe to operate a passenger aircraft?
Royal Jelly said:
Gary C said:
Not a pilot but Im thinking if its light and landing in a nose down attitude then its got too much lift which as I understand it flaps are deployed to increase lift at low airspeed so full flap extension is too much ?
The pitch difference between the two landing flap configs is half a degree - so negligible in this context. You’ll get more lift but you’ll also have a slower approach speed to compensate. What’s happened here is a gust which would ‘get you’ in either config.
As an FYI, in gusty conditions, pilots normally increase their approach speed a bit, too, in order to preserve energy. Airbus has a system that will do it for you if you let it manage the speed. It’s good in theory, but it also does mean - as you point at - you have ‘too much’ energy and lift at times, so it can be a handful to put down if you’re caught out over the runway.
Ultimately, if you can’t get it down satisfactorily then you must go around.
That being said, I prefer flap3 over flap full on a gusty day for controllability in fact I prefer f3 almost all instances where it’s sensible. I fly a 380, which wears an oversized wing that was designed for a stretched 380 variant that never materialised. When that’s being stubborn, you’re pissing into the wind.
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