In your professional opinion, were they coming down too fast already, or could a gust of wind from behind have caused this?
Delta crash at Toronto
- Thread starter edyvw
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It looks to me like they were descending at greater than normal rate. But more importantly, I saw the right wing drop - putting all the load on the right landing gear, and no perceptible flare.
So, high sink rate, placed all on one gear = exceeding structural load limits.
The left wing is still making lift, so, the fuselage rolls.
It’s random - but the common thread is: not major carriers. It’s been an Army helicopter (colliding with an RJ), a Lear Jet, and now, an RJ operated by Delta Express.
Stuff happens - and random events sometimes happen in close proximity. This isn’t a trend.
Any comment on why their descent rate was so high, and why there was no flair?
By the way, most airliners (and I believe the CRJ fits into this) has a max sink rate of 600 FPM for landing up to max weight. Up to 1000 FPM at normal landing weight, which is about the structural limit. Beyond that, you’re going to break things.
So, take this kind of landing - which looked to be about 1000 FPM - and the right wing down, which put all the load on one gear, instead of both, and that would easily exceed the design limit of the gear itself and the wing structure into which it’s bolted.
So, take this kind of landing - which looked to be about 1000 FPM - and the right wing down, which put all the load on one gear, instead of both, and that would easily exceed the design limit of the gear itself and the wing structure into which it’s bolted.
Well said.
Being a lazy retired dude I left making such clear statements behind in my QE aerospace world
IOW remind me when I come across as a sarcastic erse.
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edyvw
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Media ALWAYS reports bad news. Golden rule of media: “good news is not a news.”
Therefore, no one will skip plane crash and not report it. It is their bread and butter.
No one will watch news if headline is: “breaking news, no major airplane crash in 16 years.”
When I teach counterterrorism class I have specific class session on media reporting terrorism. One would think the world would fall apart. But if you compare to 60’s or 70’s, terrorism events are way down. The thing is, now you get instant news on palm of your hand, therefore, the world looks like it is falling apart as you are constantly bombarded by videos, short articles etc.
High descent rate could have been caused by several things - including:
1. an intermittent ILS signal, to which tower referred
2. an error earlier in the approach, which left them high, and they were correcting back down to glideslope (a common error)
3. Very high approach speed because of wind corrections and/or high gross weight
But both the descent rate, and the lack of flare, could be caused by inexperienced crew.
In other words - pilot error.
This was a “varsity day” - strong gusty crosswind, blowing snow, low ceilings.
Under those conditions, it is easy to fixate on one parameter, like the centerline, which requires a lot of attention. When there are strong, gusty winds, to the detriment of others, like flare.
It’s easy to criticize, until you’ve flown in adverse conditions.
It looked pretty gusty, with "high" sustained winds. IMO flying is one of those very dangerous things that can be done safely. Miss one step (under the right conditions)=not safe=crash.
I am however one of those idiots who has, by far, more takeoffs than landing from an airplane.
Thanks for the reply and POV.
Me no crash investigator, but those are my thoughts exactly.
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It was all over Google News when it happened
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
And those private aviation accidents happen all the time.
“Very firm”, but it doesn’t even look like that crazy of a touchdown. My guess is 17 years of brand new jet pilots slamming those RJs on and it just gave up and something snapped. It’ll be interesting to hear the recorded Gs / decent rate at touchdown.
Like this
https://simpleflying.com/ntsb-preliminary-report-alaska-airlines-boeing-737-landing-gear-failure/
Like this
https://simpleflying.com/ntsb-preliminary-report-alaska-airlines-boeing-737-landing-gear-failure/
Here is an embedded video.
Looks very hard IMO, as if the pilot thought they had another 30-50 feet to go or something like that.
Looks very hard IMO, as if the pilot thought they had another 30-50 feet to go or something like that.
MolaKule
Staff member
I would say a high sink rate collapsed the right landing gear shearing off the right wing, but with some speed remaining, the left wing had enough lift to cause the flip over.
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One condition you can find yourself in wind driven snow events are depth perception whiteouts for lack of a better term. Kind of like landing on a lake with glassy water you lose some of your reference for actual height off the deck. Not saying that's what took place here but could be another hole in the Swiss cheese model that lined up...
The pilots of CRJ look like very young when I used take them. You have to start somewhere of course.
No clue related factor just my observations.
No clue related factor just my observations.
I always liked flying on the CRJs. The scary flights were on those Saab 340s. Some of the ones I flew on looked liked they had been ridden hard and put away wet for decades. A few of the 340 cockpit crews looked just as used up as the aircraft.
Scott
MolaKule
Staff member
One interesting thing I noticed (at least to me) when flying on the 900 was the wing design, specifically the wing chord, the distance between the leading and trailing edge of the wing, measured parallel to the normal airflow over the wing.
This high-lift wing design seems to increase the chord toward the fuselage wing root more than most wing designs - it seems.
Here is a paper on the design of the earlier CRJ-700 wing:
https://www.icas.org/icas_archive/ICAS2002/PAPERS/3101.PDF
Looking at the wing specifications, it seems the increase in wing span for the 900 was 7% more than for the 700 model, which equates to the increase in the 900's wing area.
This high-lift wing design seems to increase the chord toward the fuselage wing root more than most wing designs - it seems.
Here is a paper on the design of the earlier CRJ-700 wing:
https://www.icas.org/icas_archive/ICAS2002/PAPERS/3101.PDF
Looking at the wing specifications, it seems the increase in wing span for the 900 was 7% more than for the 700 model, which equates to the increase in the 900's wing area.
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Now this I agree with.
That plane didn’t hit hard enough to do that much damage based on my view watching the video.
The gear didn’t just collapse and cause that accident because of no flare IMHO.
Combination of factors that we will have to wait for the report to find out.
We have had Airbus hit the runway A LOT harder than that and the gear just had to be replaced but it didn’t collapse.
Seems similar to that B737 with the defect that caused the gear to go through the wing.
When I said it didn’t land hard ( comments on the second video ) , I mean it didn’t land hard enough to cause that accident IMHO.
More to the story and contributing factors.
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