Saudia A320 at Taif on May 21st 2016, hard landing at 3.58G, continued service for 2 days

Last Update: June 19, 2019 / 16:57:33 GMT/Zulu time

Bookmark this article

Incident Facts

Date of incident
May 21, 2016

Classification
Accident

Cause
Hard landing

Airline
Saudi Arabian Airlines

Flight number
SV-1913

Departure
Dammam, Saudi Arabia

Destination
Taif, Saudi Arabia

Aircraft Registration
HZ-AS38

Aircraft Type
Airbus A320

ICAO Type Designator
A320

A Saudi Arabian Airlines Airbus A320-200, registration HZ-AS38 performing flight SV-1913 from Dammam to Taif (Saudi Arabia) with 138 passengers and 7 crew, landed hard in Taif causing substantial damage.

The aircraft however departed Taif for the return flight on schedule and continued service until May 23rd 2016 flying 9 sectors. After landing in Dammam on May 23rd 2016 the aircraft did not return to service so far (10 days on the ground so far, standing Jun 2nd 2016).

On Jun 2nd 2016 the French BEA reported based on information from Saudi Arabia's Authorities, that HZ-AS38 suffered a hard landing during landing in Taif on May 22nd 2016, the occurrence is being investigated by Saudi Arabia's accident investigation board.

HZ-AS38 has not been to Taif on May 22nd 2016 (local or GMT), it's last prior landing in Taif had taken place on May 21st 2016.

In 2019 Saudi Arabia's AIB confirmed the occurrence took place on May 21st 2016, an abnormal runway contact and hard landing had occurred. The AIB wrote in the narrative (not associated with any formal investigation report):

The aircraft started to descend in preparation for landing at OETF. The final approach was well established through the Instrument Landing System (ILS) for runway 25 until the Flare point.

The aircraft landed with a ~1.56 g vertical acceleration load factor, bounced 11 feet into the air with the ground spoilers retracted. The Captain (PM) immediately assumed control of the aircraft during the bounce and moved the throttles to the “IDLE” detent resulting in the immediate extension of the spoilers resulting in the aircraft losing lift and contacting the runway at ~3.58 g vertical acceleration load factor.

The air carrier detected the severe hard landing for HZ-AS38 on Monday, 23 May 2016 (two days after the occurrence) during a review of events identified by the air carrier Flight Data Monitoring program (FDM).

The aircraft had flown an additional nine (9) flights post the hard landing occurrence. After becoming aware of the hard landing occurrence, the aircraft was immediately grounded for the required inspection. After the completion of an initial severe hard landing inspection, the aircraft was ferried to Jeddah on 12 June 2016 for repairs.

The AIB reported the conclusions into the already released final report (that however was not published on the AIB Website) were:

The investigation concluded that the causal factors of this serious incident were:

- The initiation of landing flare was late in regards to the cumulative effect of the airport high elevation and runway up slope.

- The engines thrust levers were left in the “CLIMB” detent below 20 feet altitude during the flare and during initial touchdown.

- The induced full backside stick movement by the Pilot Flying resulted in an increase of the pitch angle to 9 degrees.

The investigation also identified some other contributing factors:

- After the initial bounce, the ground spoilers were deployed as the thrust levers were moved to “IDLE” position. This resulted in in the immediate loss of the aircraft lift and contributed to the hard landing.

- The flight crew did not initiate a “Go-Around” procedure when the aircraft bounced to ~ eleven (11) feet after the initial touchdown.

- The lack of effective coordination among the flight crewmembers during the approach and landing phase of the flight.