United at Zurich...what happened here..?

[BFSGrad]

Originally Posted by BugBear

"and if you don't ''hold'' the Nose Gear it will slam the Nose Gear into the runway."

​​​​​Never experienced such an NG slam. Can you expand on that?

There’s a thread in this forum regarding the July 2023 accident for UA702 (N641UA, B767-300) where the new FO accomplished a NG slam hat trick.

[Locked door]

Fullwings,

The spoilers don’t deploy on the first landing, what you’re seeing is the horizontal stabiliser appearing above the wing as the aircraft derotates.

Looking at the lack of deceleration and no spoiler deployment it looks very much like a thrust lever (significantly) not at idle landing. Think steep approach, windy day, shortish runway, low experience, rabbit in the headlights.

LD

[Globaliser]

Originally Posted by Locked door

The spoilers don’t deploy on the first landing, what you’re seeing is the horizontal stabiliser appearing above the wing as the aircraft derotates.

Isn't it the spoilers that pop up briefly at 0:34? More visible on the left wing than the right, but the outboard edge of what appears and then disappears is just above the outboard flap track fairing. But the angle makes it difficult to know how long they're actually up for.

Code:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_jsQ_EwXZw&t=33s

[Locked door]

Pretty sure that’s an aileron.

[zerograv]

Originally Posted by BugBear

"and if you don't ''hold'' the Nose Gear it will slam the Nose Gear into the runway."

​​​​​Never experienced such an NG slam. Can you expand on that?

Normally one touches down with an attitude of, say, 3 or 4º.
The Autobrakes, if armed, will act almost immediately, and will cause a de-rotation of the aircraft, which one learns to counteract, because if you don't counteract that de-rotation movement, the Nose Gear will land firmly on the runway.
Brought this detail up because if one is used to land with Autobrakes armed, and used to counteract the normal de-rotation that the Autobrakes cause, if one day, for whatever reason the Autobrakes are not functional, it is necessary to keep that in mind, because if one does the normal counteract to compensate for the braking, and the braking is not happening on that day, then one can eventually get in an High Nose attitude after the touchdown.

Wondering if the spoilers didn't deploy because they had already decided to go around?

Agree with that. Could be that because of the initial bounce they decided to go-around.
Had a look at the video a few times attempting to see (hear) if it be possible to hear the moment when, it looks to me, the GEs spooled-up for the go-around, but could not establish that moment. Either it is not possible, or my internet is not good enough for that.

Like Locked Door mentions, it doesn't look like that there was ever any decelaration after the initial touchdown.

Lets assume that, due to the initial bounce, they decided at that moment to go-around. When the engines response gets to the ''full steam ahead'' point, or close to that, the problem that then happens is a very strong Pitch-up tendency which one has to counteract to avoid a tailstrike. It might explain the non-normal attitudes that happened until they finally got in a steady go-around.

A go-around after touchdown is far more demanding, trickier, than a go-around at minimuns.

[FullWings]

The spoilers don’t deploy on the first landing, what you’re seeing is the horizontal stabiliser appearing above the wing as the aircraft derotates.

There is what *could* be a very short-lived deployment when the aircraft finally settles if you look outboard. The pitch is high enough by then that I’m not sure if you could see the rest of the spoilers from the camera viewpoint and as said earlier it might be an aileron but you don’t see it before this point.

Lets assume that, due to the initial bounce, they decided at that moment to go-around. When the engines response gets to the ''full steam ahead'' point, or close to that, the problem that then happens is a very strong Pitch-up tendency which one has to counteract to avoid a tailstrike. It might explain the non-normal attitudes that happened until they finally got in a steady go-around.

It’s a good theory, but on the recording the TD occurs at 0:23 and the first signs of N1 increasing are at 0:35 just before the nose lowers. That’s 12 seconds which tells me that the GA decision was actioned no earlier than 8-9s after TD, so after much of the porpoising.

Given that it appears they had no ground spoilers, no reverse and little to no braking (as they got back into the air quite quickly after the thrust came up), it was a good call to throw it away.

[xetroV]

Maybe the go-around was initiated, but go-around thrust was initially not set (autothrottle disengaged), like Emirates 521? Would be interesting to see a report, but I doubt the analysis of this occurrence will go beyond internal review by the airline.

[321XLR]

to add to this, the go-around was after a ??? 7+ hour flight, conducted on an otherwise shortish runway, and likely not "expected"

I think they did a good job, considering everything.

[FlightlessParrot]

Originally Posted by Locked door

Fullwings,

The spoilers don’t deploy on the first landing, what you’re seeing is the horizontal stabiliser appearing above the wing as the aircraft derotates.
SNIP
LD

I see it like Fullwings: the thing, whatever it is, appears above the port wing too far outboard to be the horizontal stabiliser. A similar thing appears above the starboard wing, though less prominently: that one really needs looking at frame-by-frame to be sure.

[Junkflyer]

They did a "good job" in the fact that they did not bend metal or hurt anyone.
But really it seems like the go-around should have been initialized earlier. Almost got a tail strike and seemingly poor rudder and pitch control.

[lederhosen]

A friend on this fleet told me Zurich was a regular initial operating experience route. United has been taking new hires with relatively low experience (eg regionaljet) directly onto the 767. This is at least the second landing mishap in the recent past for them. I can only remember taking off on the cross runway at Zurich. I can imagine things were a little tense for a moment until they got it sorted.

[galaxy flyer]

I suppose there’s something to be said for bounce drills for new FOs without heavy jet time.