A320, Pristina Kosovo, 2017

A320, Pristina Kosovo, 2017

Summary

On 1 December 2017, an Airbus A320 made an unintentional - and unrecognised - hard landing at Pristina. As the automated system for alerting outside-limits hard landings was only partially configured and output from the sole available channel was not available, the aircraft continued in service for a further eight sectors before an exceedance was confirmed and the aircraft grounded. The Investigation noted that whilst the aircraft Captain is responsible for recording potential hard landings, the aircraft operator involved should ensure that at least one of the available automated alerting channels is always functional in support of crew subjective judgement.

Description

On Friday 1 December 2017, an Airbus A320, (SX-ORG) being operated by Orange2Fly on a non-scheduled international passenger flight from Basle to Pristina as OTF3564 made a firmer than normal landing at destination in night VMC following a non-precision approach. This landing was assessed by the Captain as ‘positive’ but within limits and therefore not identified as a hard landing until the First Officer discussed concerns privately with one of the operator’s Managers two days later during which time the aircraft had operated 8 more flights. A 3 g landing was then confirmed to have occurred and the aircraft was immediately grounded with the subsequent inspection finding that replacement of all main gear wheels and one of the shock absorbers was required to validate release to service.

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