With 183 passengers and 10 crew onboard a Boeing 767-381ER was operating a scheduled flight between Bejing (China) and Tokyo (Japan). The captain would be the Pilot Flying (PF) for the flight while the co-pilot would be the Pilot Monitoring.
The wrinkled skin (structural damage) clearly visible (Source & © JTSB)
During the cruise flight, the PF gave an approach briefing, indicating a would request runway 16R for landing. The reference landing speed (Vref) was corrected with +7 knots to 145 knots due to the wind conditions, with the auto brake set to 3. While in contact with Tokyo Approach the crew requested runway 16R which was allowed and ATC started vectoring the aircraft to that runway. After an uneventful approach, ATC cleared the aircraft to land on runway 16R at 13:18:31 lt (local time). At 13:19:00 the PF and PM exchanged remarks about a wind speed, that had increased to 44 knots. At an altitude of 2800 feet, the Glideslope was captured and both crews made the standard call "GLIDESLOPE CAPTURE". Step by step the aircraft was configured for landing by selecting the landing gear down and selecting the flaps down. The wind speed varied from 50 knots to 35 knots, while also the direction changed. This made the PF change Vref to 148 knots. As a response to the 500 feet call the PF replied "STABILISED" followed a short while later by a call from the PM "AIRSPEED". The speed at that time (13:22:16 lt) was 140 knots (8 knots below the target speed). 15 seconds later the airspeed was 164 knots (16 knots above Vref). At the decision height, the PM made the call-out "MINIMUMS" to which the Captain replied "LANDING", airspeed at the time (13:22:33) 150 knots. 3 seconds later the airspeed was 137 knots, At 13:22:40 the airspeed was 159 knots.
The interior of the upper fuselage, every yellow sticker indicates structural damage. (Source © JTSB)
**For clarity, the next part of the flight will be presented chronologically by timestamp from the Flight Data Recorder**
13:22:49 lt
Right main landing gear touched down, vertical acceleration 1.58 G, pitch +5º, speed 143 knots
13:22:50 lt The aircraft bounces back into the air 13:22:51 lt The nose gear touches down followed by the right-hand main landing gear and then the left-hand main landing gear. Vertical acceleration 1.72G)
13:22:52 lt The nose landing gear recoils back into the air while the speed brakes deploy and the reversers start to deploy.
13:22:53 lt The nose landing gear touches down again with a vertical acceleration of 1.82 G.
13:23:14 lt Auto brakes deactivated
After the aircraft arrived at the parking stand extensive wrinkling of the fuselage skin was discovered, as well as damage to the nose landing. Further structural damage was discovered on a frame and 36 stringers. gear.
Video of the landing (Source: youtube.com © Unknown)
An investigation was launched by the JTSB (Japan Transport Safety Board) and on the 8th of July 2016, they published their investigation report, available (in English) by clicking here. The report gives the following Probable Causes for the incident:
It is highly probable that this accident occurred by the damage to the aircraft is a result of the hard landing of the nose landing gear after its bounce when attempting to land at Runway 16R of Narita International Airport.
It is probable that the hard landing of the nose landing gear was caused because the Captain could not notice the bounce of the aircraft and controlled it to take a nose-down position in order to make an early touch-down of the nose landing gear.
It is probable that the continued landing with the aircraft being in an unstable posture caused by a crosswind with a gust which occurs when there is a strong southwest wind around the airport contributed to the occurrence of the accident.
The aircraft undergoing repair (Source; https://freighter.flyteam.jp © Unknown)
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