2019-AA A321 wing strike departing JFK
 

https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/...149049.article

Jet rolled 36 degrees left as it rotated. This is not the final report but has a lot of info.

Wow. Had not know of this incident. Will try and keep up for the final report.

“It was taking a lot of left rudder…to keep it centreline.”
With a 38.5m wingspan on a 61m wide runway, I would have to say centerline was not maintained at all if the 5000’ remaining marker was hit.

Asking to pay/sign up. Can you copy / paste the article?

NTSB Docket
 

I see they focused on rudder trim and the jet appears in the FDR to have had 8 or 10 degrees left rudder trim for takeoff. On the A330 rudder trim is checked by the takeoff config warning. Is that not the case on the A320?

It's monitored to be in a specific range. I don't recall the range (f I ever knew) but 8* seems like a lot. It's normally set to zero.

What is “dual input “ as recorded and and announced on the Airbus?

It means one side stick is being pushed or pulled one way and the other one another way.

Doesn’t necessarily mean opposing inputs, just means that both pilots are moving their respective side sticks at the same time.

The FDR plots showed the aileron inputs from both sticks, but not sure I’m reading it correctly.

Dual input indicates that both side sticks are being moved at the same time. The summed input of those two side sticks is sent to the flight control surfaces not to exceed maximum control movement.

Yes. Important to emphasize that you cannot get more than the single stick max input. Both sticks at 50% (same direction) will sum t 100%. Both sticks at 100% will sum only to 100%.

If the sticks are moved in opposite directions that will result in subtraction.

Yes, could be any combination of same or opposing inputs.

AA300 NTSB report
 

Two 58 year olds scraped a wing and almost cartwheeled an A320 on takeoff because of poor crosswind control, and were hanging onto the tail of the plane trying to figure out what happened. But by all means, let's raise the retirement age.

And then blames everything on airbus planes sucking.

Good summary, hadn’t heard of this one. Thanks for posting.

What does age have to do with it this incident?

Do you think he was a crappy pilot for decades and got lucky or do you think he was a decent pilot at one point until age got the best of him?

My bet is crappy all along. Lots of those in this business who seem to slip through the cracks.

So we should move the retirement age to 57? You have zero evidence age played a factor, and I’m only a bit over halfway to that age so I’m not trying to defend myself. This captain was one that slipped through the cracks.

And you have zero evidence it didn't. Sit down.


This. Ya think he just didn't know how to apply rudder in an Airbus in a crosswind and squeaked by all these years? Or ya think he just got confused/distracted and stomped the wrong pedal trying to straighten it out? Good thing he didn't lose an engine at V1. Cognitive decline is real and insidious.

We should probably raise the minimum Total Time to 31000 hours these two have. That extra time flying in the pattern in a 150 would come in handy.

yes, and ban assault rudders.

Ahhh. I can’t wait for you to turn 58! 🤣

Flown with a lot of 65-73+ year olds in the fractional world. Watched a number of them slowly lose it in their last few years. None of them were in decline at 58. They may have not possessed great airmanship at that age, but it wasn’t decline.

A better summary would be “two career FO’s almost cartwheel an A321, one of them happened to be sitting in the left seat.”

Easy to scrape by and slip through the cracks in the right seat a major.

Take a look at the time breakdown. Captain had over 19k total time and less than 3k PIC in all aircraft types.

An FO should still be able to conduct a crosswind takeoff.

Maybe not a professional bunkie.

That's got USAir written all over it.

You have a life, or wife?

Not when I'm on the road.

I flew with that captain on many occasions when I was an FO. He was most definitely NOT one who slipped through the cracks. Yes, he (and many others hired around the time he was hired at Legacy AA) was forced to spend nearly twenty years in the right seat before finally upgrading, but that right seat time had no effect on his flying ability and command ability. He was excellent in both arenas. He was a good stick, and an excellent captain. I never saw anything from him that made me question his abilities in some way or another.

Why he grabbed so much left rudder as he was about to rotate is a mystery, though. Absolutely a screw up, and he had no idea he'd done it to himself.

I ran into him during a layover one evening maybe five to six months after it had happened and had a discussion with him about this, and asked him if he knew he'd hit the sign and the ground. He said neither of them knew they'd hit anything and the airplane absolutely flew normally during climbout. It wasn't until the FA showed him the picture that the passenger had taken that they had any inkling they'd hit anything at all. He remarked to me how the fbw system completely masked the damage.

So is he losing it, or did he just make some really bad mistake in the moment? Who knows?

There ya have it folks… an opinion form a 20,000 hour pilot with 200 hours, if that much, in their logbook.

Interesting details.

58 is pretty young to be losing it. In a previous life I flew with a number of 65-70yo retirees in an expat gig. Some were razor sharp. The guys that were losing it were tough to watch because they'd be rock solid in all areas then just do something sort of bizarrely erratic. Worse they would sometimes catch themselves doing it, and you'd see some pretty depressing realizations cross their minds.

I think the information we have about this event isn’t sufficient to say whether age, fatigue or whatever played a role or not. Moreover most of our speculation around age is probably centered on news events today than the details of this event. So perhaps we're viewing this thing, as lay observers, through colored glass?

I must be dense, because I do not see any rudder trim indication on the FDR excerpts they published. Where are you getting that from?

And yes, per the Vol2 the rudder trim is monitored by the takeoff config system, and it would have triggered on both the Config Test and thrust lever application.

Here is an interesting commentary about the incident -

AA300 A321 JFK