An American Airlines Airbus A321 was badly damaged on takeoff from New York. The now published conversations from the cockpit are worrying.
It happened on April 10, 2019 at New York JFK Airport. An American Airlines Airbus A321 banked sharply to the left on takeoff toward Los Angeles and struck the ground and a runway clearance marker with the wing tip. Although the wing was severely damaged, the machine climbed, turned around a little later and landed again at the departure airport after almost half an hour of flight time without anyone being injured.
The National Transportation Safety Board has now released its final report on the incident. She notes as the probable cause that the captain applied the left rudder excessively while the jet was accelerating on the runway.
“What the hell happened?”
The reason for activating the rudder was crosswinds of 14 to 17 knots from the right, which, however, were well below the crosswind limit of 35 knots set by American Airlines. The damage resulting from the action was so great that the airline took the machine out of service and later scrapped it.
Meanwhile, the conversations between the experienced captain and the equally experienced co-pilot, which were recorded by the machine’s voice recorder, are really worrying. At first there is helplessness during the incident: “Your plane, your plane, your plane. I don’t know what’s going on there, »says the co-pilot. The captain asks, “What the hell happened?” And again the first officer: “I don’t know.”
“I thought we were going to crash”
The co-pilot then asks: “Can we continue flying?” He thought they had lost an engine, but both were running. The captain notes that the flaps are also working. About the machine he says: “It feels normal now.”
The first officer points to the “extreme maneuver” and says that for political reasons alone it would be “not a bad idea to turn back”. He says he’s never been so scared on a plane as he is right now. “I thought we were falling.” Eventually they really decide to return to New York.
Passenger sees damage
The captain goes on to say to his neighbor about the A321: “I hate flying this thing in crosswinds.” He explains to a flight attendant that there are “so many computers in the Airbus that we don’t know what they sometimes do”.
Shortly thereafter, the flight attendant also pointed out that someone from Business Class had noticed that the left wing looked dented. The captain replies: “I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t matter, we’re going back.”
Control fully exploited
The captain also asks his co-pilot: “Have you ever noticed that this plane sometimes doesn’t react when you fully use the controls?” The first officer replies with a no and says that he doesn’t often max out the controls.