Enter B738 at Salzburg on Oct 29th 2017, hard touchdown and go around

Last Update: November 9, 2017 / 16:45:20 GMT/Zulu time

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Incident Facts

Date of incident
Oct 29, 2017

Classification
Incident

Airline
Enter Air

Flight number
E4-503

Departure
Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Destination
Salzburg, Austria

Aircraft Registration
SP-ESA

Aircraft Type
Boeing 737-800

ICAO Type Designator
B738

Airport
Salzburg Airport, Salzburg

Airport ICAO Code
LOWS

An Enter Air Boeing 737-800, registration SP-ESA performing flight E4-503 from Frankfurt/Main (Germany) to Salzburg (Austria), was on approach to Salzburg while a storm system was affecting large parts of Europe, tower reported the surface winds from 270 degrees at 26 knots gusting 46 knots. The aircraft performed a circling approach to Salzburg's runway 33 and was on very short final to runway 33 already in the flare at 10:26L (09:26Z) when a gust caught the aircraft causing the right wing to drop, while the crew counteracted the roll the aircraft touched down hard, the crew initiated a go around and entered the hold at Salzburg VOR. About 5 minutes after the go-around the crew advised they needed to return to Frankfurt, ATC filed a new flight plan. In the meantime two other aircraft went around from very short final (50 feet AGL), one of the crews advised they received a wind shear warning forcing the go-around from about 50 feet AGL. Tower advised the crew of another aircraft "Bei so ca. 50 Fuß über Grund kriegens dann ein paar Watschen" (at about 50 feet AGL you'll receive some clips around the ears), the crew continued the circling approach and subsequently also went around from low height. The Enter Air, after ATC had coordinated the return to Frankfurt, returned to Frankfurt, where the aircraft landed without further incident about 70 minutes after the go around.

The aircraft remained on the ground in Frankfurt for about 3 hours, then positioned to Berlin Schoenefeld (Germany) and is still on the ground in Schoenefeld about 4.5 hours after landing in Schoenefeld.

Before deciding to cover the occurrence The Aviation Herald had performed a frame to frame analysis of the videos available. Based on the visible main gear struts (and its known length) The Aviation Herald computed, very conventionally and almost certainly at the side of error resulting in too low vertical rates, that the aircraft was in the flare about 5-10 feet above ground when the right wing dropped and the aircraft reached a bank angle of 10 degrees (with one of the main gear struts on the ground a wing tip strike would occur at 14 degrees of bank angle), the right wing tip remaining about 3-5 feet above the runway surface. Left ailerons were applied, the left roll spoilers opened and reached their maximum positions reducing the lift off the left hand wing, the aircraft began to rapidly sink while the wings began to roll level. The results of the video frame analysis suggest that the right main gear touched down first at about 400 fpm increasing the left roll further, 0.12s later the left main gear touched down at an average vertical speed between 1200 and 1500 fpm (the increased roll could not be measured out of the video frames). This led to the estimation of a vertical acceleration of about 3.0G, definitely above 2.5G, when the left main gear touched down. The Aviation Herald repeated that computation on Nov 9th 2017 as a precaution before adding to the coverage.

Last week (following the event and before Nov 3rd 2017) The Aviation Herald received information from a highly competent source suggesting that the right hand engine's (CFM56) fan blade tips had rubbed the fan case suggesting, the right hand engine had experienced accelerations beyond 3.5G.

An inquiry to Enter Air mentioning the information as well as our computations remained without reply.

On Nov 8th 2017 Austria's SUB (Accident Investigation) replied to our inquiry of Nov 3rd 2017 asking about the actual values of vertical accelerations, automatic hard landing reports as well as results of subsequent hard landing inspections, that they had not received any information about the occurrence from the airline or any other aviation personnel, as result no investigation had been opened. The Aviation Herald therefore submitted an occurrence report according to VO 996 paragraph 9 (1) and is awaiting further reply.

Metars:
LOWS 291120Z 28026G41KT 250V310 9000 SHRA FEW020 SCT035 BKN055 13/07 Q1004 TEMPO 4000=
LOWS 291050Z 29027G47KT 250V310 9999 -SHRA FEW028 BKN050 13/07 Q1004 TEMPO 4000 SHRA=
LOWS 291020Z 28023G39KT 230V310 9999 SHRA FEW028 BKN045 13/07 Q1004 TEMPO 4000=
LOWS 290950Z 28026G43KT 230V320 9999 -SHRA FEW040 BKN050 14/07 Q1003 TEMPO 4000 SHRA=
LOWS 290920Z 27024G40KT 230V310 9999 FEW035 BKN045 14/07 Q1003 TEMPO 30035KT 4000 SHRA=
LOWS 290850Z 28026G43KT 240V300 9999 -RA FEW030 SCT045 BKN090 13/08 Q1002 TEMPO 4000 SHRA=
LOWS 290820Z 28025G44KT 250V310 9999 -RA FEW025 BKN060 14/08 Q1003 TEMPO 4000 SHRA=
LOWS 290750Z 29026G38KT 9999 BKN040 15/08 Q1003 NOSIG=
LOWS 290720Z 28027G46KT 240V310 9999 -RA SCT040 BKN065 16/08 Q1002 NOSIG=
LOWS 290650Z 27019G35KT 220V310 9999 FEW035 BKN070 16/08 Q1002 NOSIG=