Interesting Thing Just Happened at KATL

[daddymack 4]

Was landing a few minutes ago at KATL on a DAL 737-900. Conditions were normal, no crosswind, dry runway. The plane hit hard, really hard. It was the hardest landing I have ever experienced. The engines did not reverse immediately, but we felt hard braking. Plane began to skew to the right. Felt a hard brake to to the left side of the plane. Finally, as the plane was beginning to slow, the engines reversed, but very briefly. It was six in the morning, and everybody woke up. Flight attendant begins the usual post-landing announcement, but she was breathing hard. It sounded like she was shaken up. Any guess as to what happened?

[Rem19112343 1]

Probably just a sleepy flight crew... I had one of those too, it was very sunny outside but just a super hard touch down.

[P*Funk 9]

Unstable approach that was forced down when they should have gone around? If they were startled or 'task saturated' by whatever went wrong on the approach perhaps that caused them to bungle the rollout as well.

[Skyspin 0]

CoPilot's first career landing...

 

Joe

[TheHoser11 39]

Sounds like a typical Delta landing to me.

[PHXMD-11 86]

 

 

Any guess as to what happened?

 

Since you said everyone woke up, maybe the pilots slammed her down because no one listened to the flight attendant to wake up. The whole you MUST follow every order from a crew member and if you don't there will be repercussions thing.

[VeryBumpy 272]

Is this a riddle?

 

Yeah, I'd say pilot was allowing co-pilot some practice.

[William J.S.S 173]

I vote Co-pilot also. Gotta learn somehow, and simulators don't allow inertia training.

[daddymack 4]

Not a riddle. Just a very weird series of events. I've had hard landings before( never this hard), but the skewing to the right (you could hear an audible gasp because many thought we were going into the grass) followed by a strong application of the brake which pulled us to the other side and no application of reverse engines until were almost stopped on the runway - I wonder if we blew some tires. Also, it is standard policy for Delta to open the flight deck doors, but they remained closed, at least when I was deboarding. "Typical Delta landing." That was funny.

[P*Funk 9]

I wonder if my VA would have rejected this PIREP based on the landing rate. 

[LeeL 272]

Assuming it was the FO just because it was a hard landing is quite silly really guys.

 

We can't really know what happened in the cockpit

[PHXMD-11 86]

 

 

Assuming it was the FO just because it was a hard landing is quite silly really guys.

 

Yeah, but he can't fly the airplane worth a damn so just blame him. I mean, captains are infallible, right?

[LeeL 272]

Yeah, but he can't fly the airplane worth a damn so just blame him. I mean, captains are infallible, right?

Haha yes captains are faultless

[KriVa 307]

Just to give you an idea on this whole "flight time vs. rank" discussion.

A while ago, a pretty famous Dutch airline was taken over by another, also Dutch, airline.Most Captains at the first airline had been there for quite a number of years, getting an admirable amount of seniority in the process. However, the new owner, for whatever reason, decided they had enough experience up front, and gave those Captains two options:

- Walk away with a pretty bonus.

- Get in the cockpit at the new airline, but only as a Second Officer. However, the new airline did offer them the option to maintain the salary they had at the previous airline, and all benefits.

 

Guess which option most of them chose?

So now you have a cockpit with a pretty young Captain, and a pretty young F/O flying. All the while, there's a guy sitting behind them with probably the quadruple (or in some cases even tenfold) amount of hours they have, and he's not allowed to touch the controls below FL200.

 

All of this to say: the experience isn't always where you'd expect it to be.

[Jack C 8]

Happens all the time. My FO not too long ago has been flying airliners when I was still in high school.