Excessive pitch after bounce preceded Delta A321 tail-strike at LaGuardia

First officer had been undergoing operational training at time of occurrence.
US investigators believe excessive pitch input after a bounced landing led to a Delta Air Lines Airbus A321 tail-strike at New York LaGuardia earlier this year.

The aircraft had been inbound from Fort Lauderdale on 14 July.

Its first officer was undergoing operational experience training, and the line-check captain had instructed them to fly the approach manually.

As a result the autopilot was disengaged at 18,000ft and the autothrottle at 10,000ft, says the National Transportation Safety Board.

The captain testified that the first officer flew the approach well, with no notable deviation.

But on short final the aircraft’s airspeed began to decay below the target approach speed, and the first officer made two thrust adjustments in a bid to correct it.

The flare was initiated “slightly late”, says the inquiry – flight-data recorder information suggests about 30ft – and the jet was pitched nose-up to 7°.

It touched down firmly at 1.9g and bounced.

“Following the bounce, the [first officer] applied excessive aft sidestick input, and the airplane touched down a second time,” the inquiry says. Recorder information shows pitch reached a maximum of just over 10°.

The captain assumed control, lowered the nose, and initiated a go-around.

Once established in the go-around, the first officer resumed control and subsequently landed without further incident.

None of the 194 occupants was injured.

But cabin crew had heard a “loud scraping noise” during the landing attempt and an inspection of the aircraft (N382DN) revealed substantial damage to the lower fuselage.

The A321 is vulnerable to tail-strikes if nose-up pitch inputs are aggressive, because its long fuselage limits the margin for runway clearance.

Delta Air Lines’ crew procedures for a bounced landing recovery instruct pilots to hold the normal landing attitude and control the rate of descent with thrust – or, in the case of a high, hard bounce, execute a go-around without allowing pitch attitude to increase.

Investigators state that, had the first officer recognised the hard bounce and initiated a go-around, or had the captain intervened sooner, the tail-strike “likely would have been avoided”.

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