THY A321 at Istanbul on Feb 27th 2020, dropped both nose wheels on landing

Last Update: April 26, 2022 / 10:15:28 GMT/Zulu time

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Photo of THY Turkish Airlines TC-JSH, Airbus A321 — THY Turkish Airlines TC-JSH, Airbus A321 (Photo credit: Florian Klebl / Flickr / License: CC by-nd)

Incident Facts

Date of incident
Feb 27, 2020

Classification
Accident

Airline
THY Turkish Airlines

Flight number
TK-1598

Departure
Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Destination
Istanbul, Turkey

Aircraft Registration
TC-JSH

Aircraft Type
Airbus A321

ICAO Type Designator
A321

A THY Turkish Airlines Airbus A321-200, registration TC-JSH performing flight TK-1598 from Frankfurt/Main (Germany) to Istanbul (Turkey) with 139 passengers and 7 crew, landed on Istanbul's runway 16R at 12:26L (09:26Z) but dropped both nose wheels. The aircraft came to a stop on the runway on the stump of the nose gear strut and the main wheels. The aircraft was disabled. There were no injuries, the passengers disembarked via mobile stairs onto the runway and were bussed to the terminal.

On Apr 30th 2020 Turkey reported after landing at a speed of about 100 KIAS both nose tyres burst. The aircraft stopped on the runway. The occurrence was rated a serious incident and is being investigated by Turkey.

The Turkish UEIM (Transport Safety Investigation Center) released their final report in Turkish only (Editorial note: to serve the purpose of global prevention of the repeat of causes leading to an occurrence an additional timely release of all occurrence reports in the only world spanning aviation language English would be necessary, a Turkish only release does not achieve this purpose as set by ICAO annex 13 and just forces many aviators to waste much more time and effort each in trying to understand the circumstances leading to the occurrence. Aviators operating internationally are required to read/speak English besides their local language, investigators need to be able to read/write/speak English to communicate with their counterparts all around the globe).

The report concludes the probable causes of the occurrence were:

- the late disengagement of the autopilot which caused difficulty in adjusting to manual control

- continuation of the unstabilized landing

- incorrect control inputs responding to sudden wind changes

- hard touch down on the nose wheels

- human factors and serious meteorologic conditions

The UEIM summarized the sequence of events based on the captain's statements:

The crew was told 23 knots crossing on landing for runway 16R, which was outside the landing limits for the first officer, the captain therefore took control of the aircraft. Descending through 2000 feet tower reported the winds as 38 knots headwind component and 1 knot cross wind component. The autopilot was disengaged at about 300-400 feet AGL, at 50 feet AGL the wind was at the limit, the aircraft descended through 20 feet AGL and the thrust was reduced, at 10 feet AGL the wind suddenly ceased. A nose up input was provided, the aircraft however dropped the nose resulting in a firm but not hard touchdown followed by immediate and severe shaking during roll out. The captain focussed on keeping the aircraft on the center line, after stop shut the engines down and informed ATC.

The first officer perceived the landing was a little bit more firm than usual.

The UEIM reported that apart from the nose gear damage the main gear struts needed to be inspected and assessed for the hard touchdown, both engines received damage due to ingestation of foreign object and received nicks and dents to fan blades and inlet, left hand slats and the right hand flap tab received dents.

The captain (39, ATPL, 5359 hours total) was assisted by a first officer (27, CPL, 1709 hours total, 1475 hours on type).

The UEIM analysed that according to FDR the autopilot was disengaged at 300 feet AGL, at that point the wind came from 198 degrees at 42 knots, the CAS was 165 knots at 720 fpm sinkrate, the pitch was about 1-2 degrees nose down. Within 4 seconds the sinkrate increased to 850 fpm, a light nose up input reduced the sinkrate to 500 fpm and increased the pitch to 2.5 degrees nose up, the CAS reduced to 161 knots. Descending through 100 feet AGL the wind came from 202 degrees at 32 knots, the pitch was 1 degree nose up, the sinkrate was 735 fpm.

At 50 feet AGL the aircraft's CAS was 155 knots, sinkrate 535 fpm, winds from 197 degrees at 33 knots, the pitch was 1.76 degrees nose up. At 29 feet AGL the winds were from 195 degrees at 36 knots, the sinkrate was 288 fpm, CAS 150 knots.

At 16 feet AGL the wind still came from 196 degrees at 30 knots.

At 8 feet AGL the wind came from 196 degrees at 28 knots, CAS 146 knots, 464 fpm, at 6 feet AGL the wind came from 202 degrees at 25 knots, the pitch was 1 degree nose down. Shortly thereafter the aircraft touched down, pitch was 2.11 degrees nose down, vertical acceleration as the nose gear touched down first was 1.52G, within a second the left main landing gear touched down produced a 1.83G followed by 0.65G and all wheels touching ground at 2.51G, wind at that point was from 214 degrees at 20 knots.

The UEIM analysed that the crew had added 3 knots to Vref for their Vapp in anticipation of increasing winds, below 20 feet AGL the winds decreased by about 10 knots however.

Metars:
LTFM 271220Z 22028G38KT 7000 -SHRA FEW020CB SCT035 BKN090 18/08 Q1003 TEMPO 4000 -TSRA=
LTFM 271150Z 22031G46KT 9999 FEW025TCU SCT040 BKN090 18/07 Q1003 TEMPO FM1230 4000 -TSRA=
LTFM 271120Z 22031G44KT 9999 SCT040 BKN090 18/07 Q1003 NOSIG=
COR LTFM 271050Z 21031KT 9999 SCT040 BKN100 19/07 Q1003 NOSIG=
LTFM 271020Z 22030G40KT 9999 FEW040 BKN180 18/07 Q1004 NOSIG=
LTFM 270950Z 22030G40KT 9999 FEW040 BKN180 18/07 Q1004 NOSIG=
LTFM 270920Z 21034G44KT 9999 FEW040 BKN180 18/07 Q1004 NOSIG=
LTFM 270850Z 21031G44KT 9999 FEW040 BKN180 17/07 Q1004 NOSIG=
LTFM 270820Z 21035G48KT 9999 FEW040 BKN180 17/06 Q1004 NOSIG=
LTFM 270750Z 22033KT 9999 FEW040 BKN180 16/06 Q1004 NOSIG=
LTFM 270720Z 22030G40KT 9999 FEW040 BKN180 16/06 Q1005 NOSIG=
LTFM 270650Z 22032KT CAVOK 16/06 Q1005 NOSIG=