Yeah, I saw that one on TV this morning and on our pilot web boards it's being critiqued heavily! My first thought was, why was he trying to land there in the first place?? The idiots on CNN are saying the guy is a Hero, but we pilots know he was inches from killing everyone on board!
Try google on that LiveLeak web site, there are other videos of pilots doing it correctly. Every airplane has a maximum crosswind and it looked like this was beyond the A320's limit, but I don't know for sure, I wasn't there.
It looked like he forgot to lower the right wing when he "kicked it out" just prior to touchdown. He comes in in a crab, as he should, and per our earlier dicussion, he was going to kick it straight just prior to touchdown. BUT, when you do that, the upwind wing (right wing in this video) develops more lift as it comes foreward, and the left wing less lift as it pivots backwards, so you have to add down aileron to the upwind wing (rt. wing here) to keep it from rising. He didn't, you can see the wings are level as he kicks it straight, and they remain level for a second, then as it straightens out, the upwind (rt) wing lifts.
The -kick it out- method requires perfect timing as you need to plant it on the ground firmly as soon as it straightens out, he didn't and it starts drifting to the left, and the right wing is coming up, and the left wingtip drags on the runway.
They were very lucky it just scraped the pavement and didn't catch the grass, which might have caused a cartwheel and a certain crash with fatalities. My guess is the other pilot was screaming something like, "GO AROUND, GO AROUND!!" Which they did, and I heard they even came right back and landed ok. Practice makes perfect! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />
The real "hero's" that day were the hundreds of other Pilots who did it RIGHT, but you won't see any video of them. I would not be surprised if that guy in the video is on his way to the simulator for some crosswind landing training!
BTW an old family friend of mine was killed this past Saturday morning when a pilot was trying to land in a crosswind at Titusville, FL. and he lost control, and hit my friends airplane who was on a taxiway near the runway he missed.
