“It’s too much to say I am a national hero, I am absolutely sure that any one of our pilots could have landed the plane and the result would have been the same because we train for situations like this on simulators”, So said Captain Wrona after the wheels-up landing of the LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 767 at Warsaw. And he is absolutely right. No pilot I have ever known has wanted to be a hero; he or she just wants a quiet life and to do a good professional job, as do our ATC colleagues.
As a counter view to the previous article giving the view from the Control Tower, I would like to say a few words about how this incident would have been seen from the cockpit.
I have never operated ETOPS aircraft and so will not comment on the wisdom or otherwise of continuing across the Atlantic with one of the hydraulic systems out of action. I operated Boeing 747s where we had the luxury of having 4 engines and 4 hydraulic systems. But what I would like to comment on is how one handles a wheels-up landing and some of the decisions that would have had to be made by the flight crew.
The first thing is that no-one would have expected the alternate gear lowering system to fail. This consists of a simple electrical system which releases the uplocks so that gravity and aerodynamic loads will effect a free fall of all the undercarriage legs. The failure of this system would only have become apparent during the initial approach when the crew were ready to lower the gear. At this point there would probably have been sufficient fuel on board for somewhere between 1 and 2 hours flying time. Thus there was time to assess the situation, to consult the airline’s maintenance department, try a number of other methods of lowering the gear, to burn off fuel so as to reduce the landing weight and minimise the residual fuel in the tanks, and to prepare for an emergency landing and subsequent evacuation.
No-one wants to have to deal with an emergency of any sort, but these things are a fact of life and are trained for on the simulator. Most (all) aircraft manufacturers recommend, in these situations, landing with all available gears extended.
A landing with only the nose gear stuck up is a non-event. You touch down normally, delay braking and then, just before you run out of elevator control somewhere between 80 and 100kts, you gently lower the nose onto the runway and brake firmly. There is usually hardly any damage except for some minor scrapes around the nose gear area.
The more difficult situation to handle is when one main gear is stuck up. In this case the approach is entirely normal but you have to take care when touching down on one main leg, and you have to keep the unsupported side up for as long as possible using aileron control. At about 80 – 100kts aileron control is lost and it is most important to lower the wing gently to the ground before this happens. It is really only at this point that the problems start as the subsequent swing depends on a number of unknown factors. But as far as I know most premeditated landings of this sort have involved no more than a small swing onto the grass.
A total wheels-up approach and landing, as was the case at Warsaw, is most unusual but would probably be fairly straight forward. The approach would be entirely normal except for the reduced drag which would require a slightly lower power setting. The touchdown would feel slightly different as the ground effect and eye height would be slightly different since the aircraft would be touching down about 2 metres lower than usual. And the landing roll (scrape?) would at least have the benefit of symmetrical drag, making the task of keeping straight rather easier.
All these manoeuvres are practised on the simulator and discussed during recurrent training. The simulator may not reproduce all the handling issues totally accurately, but should do so with great accuracy for a landing with the nose gear stuck up, slightly less so for a total wheels-up landing because the exact qualities of the ground effect may not be known precisely, and fairly accurately for a one main leg down landing. Certainly, when I carried out these exercises, it felt reasonable so far as the aileron control was concerned, however the subsequent swing across the runway and onto the grass has to be conjectural as I doubt that there are any numbers for the drag from one wing scraping along the concrete. But, despite that, we usually managed to keep it on the runway.
If I was faced with having to do an all wheels-up landing, I would have every confidence that I could do it successfully. And I agree with the Polish pilot who said any of their pilots could have done the same with the same result. My only concerns would have been:-
• My ability to keep the aircraft straight towards the end of the landing run. Therefore I would try to choose a runway without a cross wind, with no obstacles near to the sides of the runway, and I would ask ATC to keep other aircraft well clear of parallel taxiways.
• The length of runway required because I would have no brakes, no reverse thrust, and I do not know the braking effect of aluminium on concrete. But I would be surprised if the landing run was very much longer than normal. So I would certainly choose the longest runway available, and 3000 metres would be more than adequate, as I would have either dumped or burnt off fuel so as to have near empty tanks and be at a light weight.
• Having slightly less drag on the approach since the gear is up. But this would be a very minor consideration. And if I didn’t like my first approach I would go around and do it again – no big deal.
• The relatively small risk of fire at the end of the landing run. In the airline that I flew for, we discussed at length the use of foam on the runway. We concluded that it was not necessary because it made no appreciable difference to the risk of fire from the scraping of metal on concrete and it would be far better for the airport fire service to keep all their foam available for any subsequent fire should it occur. In fact we found out that the use of foam on the runway in some cases could be positively dangerous as many airports (especially those that might be used after a diversion) did not have enough foam to both spread on the runway and to fight a subsequent fire – in which case they would have to call upon other back-up fire brigades with all the complications that might entail. And this was not a decision made by the airline on its own, we consulted the CAA, aircraft manufacturers and a number of airport fire services.
• My last concern would be crowd control during and following the evacuation, but these are no different from any other evacuation and would probably be somewhat easier because it would have been premeditated with some time to prepare, and the risk of fire would be low. It would be most unlikely to be anything like the Qantas A380 problem at Singapore where they had an engine which would not stop and a large fuel leak. Aircraft with underslung engines should survive a wheels-up landing with only minor damage. A high wing aircraft might be a little more difficult, though I would imagine it would not be too difficult to keep the wings level.
There are many types of emergency that flight crews and air traffic controllers have to deal with. But, spectacular as this wheels-up landing may have appeared, I can think of many others which are far more demanding. This crew did a good professional job, in the way that they had been trained, and I am sure that any other crew could do the same. I am also sure that Captain Wrona and his crew would agree too.