+Robert Simmonds BOUNCED landing, with a compromised landing gear. Remaining body gear over-stressed. Any harder and there would have been spinal injuries. You can see the wings flex. Pilots grease these airplanes onto runways around the globe every day.
+Randall S Couldn't agree more. I have sat on the flight deck of everything from a Cessna 172 to this precise model of aircraft. The fact the right MBG was out of service meant this should have been a far gentler landing than normal, in fact the reverse is true.
Too late by then, would not have sufficient ground clearance as other gear would have compressed the oleos. On a Touch and go - maybe a possibility but this was a committed landing.
Not true. Even if it had released it wouldn't have opened fully and locked into place. If the pilot was trying to do that, he would have hit hard and taken back off again without committing to the landing.
+billiepipersteeth What's your opinion of the landing? I see pilots float these aircraft onto runways every day. These guys slammed it down, bouncing it so hard the wings flexed, unnecessarily overstressing the remaining body gear at the one moment in this pilot's career when he should have performed a perfect flare and allowed the aircraft to settle onto the surface. Hey, just sayin'.
Fly this route to DefCon in vegas every summer, great to see the VA crew dealing with this kind of emergency without so much as a scratch, hats off to them all.
Hey mate, is it OK to feature your clip in a my chanel for educational purposes (so-called temporary copyright.)? You can stop me from using your content at any time and it will be deleted immediately. It will be credited in the description & comments section with your name. Thanks, MM
Well.....I have a ?. If they were trying to get the "remaining gear to fall free"..... Wouldn't it be too late. The gear can't lock itself into place once the plane is on the ground.....or even near it (say a few feet). I don't think that gear falls like a bucket of cement. Can someone + info?
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We will be landing shortly and the flight crew now ask that everyone to please move to the left side of the aircraft. Thank you for flying with us today.
Why would anyone dislike this video? You just seen what great engineering and safety in design prevent a disaster. Did you want to see a plane crash with casualties?
dansus99 You are the person posting on a clip where a pilot pulls off an amazing landing with a major part of the undercarriage missing, rendering it an extremely difficult task that could've easily ended in the wing and/ or engines hitting the runway, critiquing about the bounce that occurred due to the pilot clearly not being able to touch down with any force or weight/motion on the starboard side wheels that AREN'T THERE. I'm not a pilot either but you have to be a supreme bell end with no grasp of common sense to seriously ask what you did. Or are you just trolling?
Ed Winchester Who's critiquing? The same questions will be asked in debrief and this event will no doubt be used as a training case. Always something to learn for next time. Besides, you just answered my question. If you did that in first place, we wouldnt have to waste time with this engaging repartee.
I was on that flight, pilot did a great job. They spent a few hours trying to shake down the gear, this made a few passengers a little uneasy but no major panic.
I used to have duties which included landing gear loads analysis (normal and abnormal configs) for a major airframe manufacturer. Here's what you are looking at: * Moderate touchdown rate at well under the 12 fps design value (an *average* carrier landing is what 12 fps looks like, BTW) or the 15 fps gear failure value, but above the typical 4-6 fps. * Relatively low touchdown loads, even minus one strut, because wing lift was still counteracting much of the weight. Maybe even less than the loads experienced at rotation when they took off, if they were anywhere near MTOW for the flight. Confirmed by the wing deflection, which was a tiny fraction of the design value. * Continued reduced loads thanks to only 4 of 12 spoiler panels deploying. That's why it bounces: still plenty of lift from the wing, so not even enough down force to counteract the up force from the compressed shock struts . The usual peak loads just aren't there. * As others have noted, an excellent job by the flight crew of keeping the aircraft all shiny and new!
I wonder if the crew arranged it so that any empty seats were on the right side of the cabin, to ensure the load was more over to the under carriage which was functioning properly? May not have made a significant difference? Just wondering.
Brilliant landing. Bully to the pilots and crew. I watched a documentary on the 747 once and it really is quite an amazing aircraft. One of the original Boeing test pilots kept running into engine blow-outs (GE or Pratt & Whitney, can't recall which) and to illustrate the problem to the disbelieving engine manufacturer engineers the pilot blew out all but one engine in-flight and the 747 happily kept flying. Needless to say the engine manufacturer told him to stop and fixed the problem soon thereafter!
Disaster avoided, calm and professional pilot there mate. And you realize what a beast that 74 is when those huge trucks get to and and are freaking dwarfed by it.
Right Wing fuel empty (dumped) to lose weight on that side to avoid collapse, great job by the crew. I don't understand why, 'cause virgin makes good maintenance to all their aircraft.
+Stingercam21 Look, Stuff Happens. I have a private license here in the USA. I had a gear problem on a Piper Turbo Saratoga SP. It had just gone through a maintenance check, and the landing gear retraction and extension mechanism had just been repaired. When I extended the gear, I only got two green on the mains, but no green on the nose. I declared an emergency and had my passengers move to the rear of the aircraft to move my CG aft. I touched down, and very slowly lowered the nose. when the nose touched down, the nose gear green light came on. It turned out to be an ever so slightly mis-adjusted micro switch on the nose. The point I am trying to make is that even with the best maintenance, things can and DO go wrong.
Can any professional tell me, why the PF did cut off the engines that late? They seem to spool down about one minute after the acft stopped, that is quite late and endangers rescue staff...
Beautiful landing -- accomplished pilots bringing that big bird down so nicely -- they almost greased it! Good job! No. 4 (starboard) engine never touched the runway. Happy landing!
Everyone is complimenting the pilot, which he did do a great job. But I'm here to give a pat on the back to the engineers who designed this beautiful bird well and strongly enough to land with 1 of the landing gears malfunctioned.
I played squash with the Captain of this flight recently. His young daughter was accompanying him on this trip and was sat in the passenger cabin. Imagine how proud she must have been of her dad as he safely landed the aircraft. Captain was a lovely bloke. And also annoyingly good at squash. 😅
Great Capture! Superb landing by the pilots! I am amazed nothing was harmed during this landing. The right wing landing gear didn't deploy properly. I really hope hydraulic line wasn't damage severely.
Fantastic shot. Well done. Do we have more details on the configuration of the landing along with a cause? I would love to see an ACI episode in the future on this.
With a set of brakes missing, landing/stopping distances are extended. Therefore, a pinpoint landing is required so as to extend spoilers and use the reduced braking capacity. It has nothing to do with the gear being stuck. This procedure also applies when landing on wet, snow, icy or short runways. Ret Captain.
It seems unlikely that the gear struts could come fully down and lock with the pressure of the aircraft pressing upon them. The gear must have been partially extended, since there were no sparks from the underside of the engines on the right wing. I suspect the pilot just wanted to put it down promptly.
ANY landing you walk away from is a "GOOD" landing if you can still fly the aircraft afterwards it is a "PERFECT" LANDING! Looks like a lot of "whuffo's making negative comments on this landing. Nothing wrong with this landing, well done.
I'm curious - as an interested observer, not as a pilot - would opening the crossfeeds and transferring some fuel over to the left wing (given that the right main failed to deploy) be considered a good idea here? It strikes me that would help to counterbalance it a bit and keep it from listing too heavily towards the absent gear.
+katie_incredible You can't actually transfer fuel from one wing tank to another during flight. Transferring fuel requires the refuel manifold and the fuel feed manifold to be connected by opening the refuel/defuel valve that is in the wing refueling station, you also have to open the refuel valves for each tank, and they are also in the refueling station located on the leading edge of the left wing.. You can however feed all of the engines from one or more tanks, so maybe they could have used the fuel from the right wing first.
Considering it was a gear failure, why did the captain bounce the plane on landing? Was he hoping for it to drop down? I was anticipating a smooth landing. :)
Great job and thankfully ones hurt. But why so not gently on landing part, specially its missing some landing gear it gives much more pressure to the rest. Weather condition seems good.
softer landing required gentle engine reduction, need more speed. in this case just land the jumbo, kill the engine, fuel pump and stop as short as you can. dont know lost wheel will lead you, goin off runway not the option because it can roll the jumbo body.
Sukoco Imam Well in fact best landing are with some power on rather than idle the pilot definitely did a positive landing a bit too hard for me but the main point is that he kept control of the plane and center line...also I don't know if you saw it but he kept engines running till the end of the video though...
I wonder if there would have been any merit to transferring wing fuel to the high wing to shift the CG sideways to be more centered on the landing gear. Either before or after landing. (I'm thinking more after landing, to re-balance the plane. Being off-center in flight would only have made the plane more difficult to handle and the fuel transfer would have added one more task to the flight crew).
You could just see how much weight was being put on those other landing gears just because one set was gone. Just look at how close the flaps were to the runway when he touched down!
+Fluke Cypriot Good aircraft... bad piloting. Pilots grease 747-400's onto runways every day of every year around the globe. This was a bad time to bounce on a crippled landing gear.
That wasn't a particularly good landing! There was no need to "bounce" the aircraft like that *IF* that bounce was intended, in fact it could have been dangerous if it caused the stuck gear to then deploy & strike the ground in an unstable position!
I'm not a pilot,... but why hammer the plane on the runway like that when you're already missing a gear? The plane even bounced! This plane clearly has amazing suspension
Like in most radio comms, you soon get used to it when listening all day. Surprisingly fast as well. But things like the phonetic alphabet and numeric codes help. Also correct radio protocol has specific pronunciation e.g "niner" instead of nine and "Fife" instead of five.
I think it landed harder than it should because some of the force that should have been absorbed by the malfunctioning landing gear was distributed to the functioning ones.
Does anyone know why the emergency vehicles don't position themselves further down the runway on emergencies like this? It always seems like they're a long way behind the aircraft. I understand that they can't afford to get mixed up in amongst a crash landing otherwise everyone's doomed. It just seems a bit strange that they're so far back when the aircraft touches down. Couldn't they get further down the runway but a safe distance off the centre line? Just curious to find out, thanks :-)
Although it bounce but still not really easy, there are some crosswind and with the fault, it is really hard to land perfectly. I think it is already acceptable.
Great Airmanship. Wait, did anyone else notice that the left Horizontal Stabilizer is more deflected than the right? Like is there some measure of roll control built into the B747 stabilizer that makes one deflect more than the other to aid roll. Before any smart guy comes to tell me that roll is controlled by the Ailerons and Pitch is controlled by the Stabilizer/Elevators, please be informed that I already know. I'm asking a question based on what I can see in this video.
Kudos to the pilots for ending this flight safely, but I gotta say; this is by far the HARDEST 747 landing I have ever seen. Between videos and my job on an airport ramp, I have seen thousands of 747 landings, and never seen one slam down like this. This a testament to just how sturdy my favorite airplane really is. I understand the pilots were dealing with a stressful situation, but when you have broken landing gear, you want to put her down as GENTLY as possible.
I can't stop smiling. Such a great landing, and so glad everyone walked away. Hats off to the whole crew!
me to :D
>>Hats off to the whole crew!
True, true!
Robert Simmonds Hard landing but gj nonetheless.
+Robert Simmonds
BOUNCED landing, with a compromised landing gear. Remaining body gear over-stressed. Any harder and there would have been spinal injuries. You can see the wings flex.
Pilots grease these airplanes onto runways around the globe every day.
+Randall S Couldn't agree more. I have sat on the flight deck of everything from a Cessna 172 to this precise model of aircraft. The fact the right MBG was out of service meant this should have been a far gentler landing than normal, in fact the reverse is true.
I was expecting those engines to strike the runway after touchdown, but they did not. Impressive!
Everyone needs to realise the PF touched down firmly on purpose in an attempt to release the stuck landing gear out of its bay.
Too late by then, would not have sufficient ground clearance as other gear would have compressed the oleos. On a Touch and go - maybe a possibility but this was a committed landing.
Not true. Even if it had released it wouldn't have opened fully and locked into place. If the pilot was trying to do that, he would have hit hard and taken back off again without committing to the landing.
It really doesnt matter considering the 747 can land with 2 gear out 1 on each side with no problem it was designed that way
first class film and sound recording; one for the books. Thank you!
Thanks!
LondonAircraft very nice !
To me this is the most beautiful and amazing plane ever built. Great work by the pilots.
Couldn’t agree more tbh especially the 747-8i
Gotta love armchair experts.
I agree and 99% have not even been on a 747 let alone at the controls
+billiepipersteeth
What's your opinion of the landing? I see pilots float these aircraft onto runways every day.
These guys slammed it down, bouncing it so hard the wings flexed, unnecessarily overstressing the remaining body gear at the one moment in this pilot's career when he should have performed a perfect flare and allowed the aircraft to settle onto the surface.
Hey, just sayin'.
+Randall S
THANK YOU. I swear some people on here need their eyes checked.
+Randall S Jah that was no perfect landing.
Trying to free the stuck wheel in this manner is bull shit.
b777 pilot
+billiepipersteeth I sit on many armchairs...I am an armchair expert!
Bottom line is - they ALL walked away.
Well done Pilots and Crew.
Fly this route to DefCon in vegas every summer, great to see the VA crew dealing with this kind of emergency without so much as a scratch, hats off to them all.
If there is anything that will give you 100% confidence to land it safely, is knowing your own child is one of the passengers. 👏 👏 👏
My son is a pilot, remember watching his first landing on that same runway. Not all plain sailing!
It looks crazy seeing a 747 land with a missing gear! If this was any other plane this would be a very different story.
That was a darn good landing and that entire crew, especially the captain, deserves some major praises and more!
and they kept it on the centerline. Professional!
Hey mate, is it OK to feature your clip in a my chanel for educational purposes (so-called temporary copyright.)? You can stop me from using your content at any time and it will be deleted immediately.
It will be credited in the description & comments section with your name. Thanks, MM
thanks for posting this video. the pilot deserves a national award.
gbnoob20 Thanks for the comment
+gbnoob20
They unnecessarily bounced the aircraft on crippled landing gear.
They got it on the ground, and that's about all you can say for them.
+Randall S Yeah. Considering they didn't have all of their landing gear, he came down a bit hard.
+marcel911--Agree with you..Very dangerous low stall on a bad landing gear..mediocre hard landing..
Absolute textbook perfection. I hope this crew are flying VS43 when I go on it in September.
Bouncing a landing is textbook perfection?
I know virgin crews as they train with the company i work for... they said it was intentional to try to get the remaining gear to fall free
Well.....I have a ?.
If they were trying to get the "remaining gear to fall free".....
Wouldn't it be too late. The gear can't lock itself into place once
the plane is on the ground.....or even near it (say a few feet). I
don't think that gear falls like a bucket of cement. Can someone + info?
@@stressbelden5869 3 years later but if they bounce it the gear should be able to fall and gravity lock in place
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We will be landing shortly and the flight crew now ask that everyone to please move to the left side of the aircraft. Thank you for flying with us today.
Why would anyone dislike this video? You just seen what great engineering and safety in design prevent a disaster. Did you want to see a plane crash with casualties?
If it was thunder birds, they would place the fire engine under the right wing!
Thanks for sharing this great vid! Superb work! Glad everything went well!
***** thanks
LondonAircraft Great Capture!~ just curious, how did you obtain the radio conversation? is it readily available on the open channel?
Isaac Kim A hobbiest near by had a radio, you can pick them up cheaply, apparently
The 747 is one of the most robust commercial jets ever constructed. Props to Boeing.
Best footage I've seen on emergency landings, thanks .
Stuart frazer Billingham thank you
What do we think of the bounce on landing. Room for improvement or best that could be done in the circumstances?
Tosser.
max wright
Im not a pilot, so its not even a possibility. Hence why i was asking.
Ed Winchester
Get a life.
dansus99 You are the person posting on a clip where a pilot pulls off an amazing landing with a major part of the undercarriage missing, rendering it an extremely difficult task that could've easily ended in the wing and/ or engines hitting the runway, critiquing about the bounce that occurred due to the pilot clearly not being able to touch down with any force or weight/motion on the starboard side wheels that AREN'T THERE. I'm not a pilot either but you have to be a supreme bell end with no grasp of common sense to seriously ask what you did. Or are you just trolling?
Ed Winchester
Who's critiquing?
The same questions will be asked in debrief and this event will no doubt be used as a training case. Always something to learn for next time.
Besides, you just answered my question. If you did that in first place, we wouldnt have to waste time with this engaging repartee.
Pilot earned his pay that day....did an impressive job in my book, landed safely...all onboard safe....good job. 👍👍👍
Love the guy at the end "Not gonna lie bit disappointed to be honest"
Great vid. Stunning landing. Like a bird. Absolute perfection by flight crew.
Full marks to the pilot AND the 747!
I was on that flight, pilot did a great job. They spent a few hours trying to shake down the gear, this made a few passengers a little uneasy but no major panic.
There is always the armchair pilot who has to criticize....He landed this beast safely with all the pax....So respect in my book!
My 747-200 flight manual says if one of the wing gear is retracted on landing the plane will be uncontrollable. I guess that isn't true on a -400
+Harrison Bounel Flight Sim doesn't count
The Pilot is a master of his craft...smack down the center of the runway!
Harrison Bounel i
It came close. Had those engines touched the ground, things could have become quite messy.
When he said "Greased it" could he have been referring to the seat of pilot's pants?
I used to have duties which included landing gear loads analysis (normal and abnormal configs) for a major airframe manufacturer. Here's what you are looking at:
* Moderate touchdown rate at well under the 12 fps design value (an *average* carrier landing is what 12 fps looks like, BTW) or the 15 fps gear failure value, but above the typical 4-6 fps.
* Relatively low touchdown loads, even minus one strut, because wing lift was still counteracting much of the weight. Maybe even less than the loads experienced at rotation when they took off, if they were anywhere near MTOW for the flight. Confirmed by the wing deflection, which was a tiny fraction of the design value.
* Continued reduced loads thanks to only 4 of 12 spoiler panels deploying. That's why it bounces: still plenty of lift from the wing, so not even enough down force to counteract the up force from the compressed shock struts . The usual peak loads just aren't there.
* As others have noted, an excellent job by the flight crew of keeping the aircraft all shiny and new!
Considering the increased load on the remaining landing gear I'm surprised more effort wasn't made to reduce the force on landing
I wonder if the crew arranged it so that any empty seats were on the right side of the cabin, to ensure the load was more over to the under carriage which was functioning properly? May not have made a significant difference? Just wondering.
That pilot need a raise, nerve of steel proper decision making, everyone is safe and bonus prevented any damage to the plane. Incredible
Brilliant landing. Bully to the pilots and crew. I watched a documentary on the 747 once and it really is quite an amazing aircraft. One of the original Boeing test pilots kept running into engine blow-outs (GE or Pratt & Whitney, can't recall which) and to illustrate the problem to the disbelieving engine manufacturer engineers the pilot blew out all but one engine in-flight and the 747 happily kept flying. Needless to say the engine manufacturer told him to stop and fixed the problem soon thereafter!
Disaster avoided, calm and professional pilot there mate.
And you realize what a beast that 74 is when those huge trucks get to and and are freaking dwarfed by it.
Right Wing fuel empty (dumped) to lose weight on that side to avoid collapse, great job by the crew. I don't understand why, 'cause virgin makes good maintenance to all their aircraft.
+Stingercam21
Look, Stuff Happens. I have a private license here in the USA. I had a gear problem on a Piper Turbo Saratoga SP. It had just gone through a maintenance check, and the landing gear retraction and extension mechanism had just been repaired. When I extended the gear, I only got two green on the mains, but no green on the nose. I declared an emergency and had my passengers move to the rear of the aircraft to move my CG aft. I touched down, and very slowly lowered the nose. when the nose touched down, the nose gear green light came on. It turned out to be an ever so slightly mis-adjusted micro switch on the nose.
The point I am trying to make is that even with the best maintenance, things can and DO go wrong.
+Mark Emanuele cool story mate, glad it worked out ok for you
Can any professional tell me, why the PF did cut off the engines that late? They seem to spool down about one minute after the acft stopped, that is quite late and endangers rescue staff...
That landing looks better than most landings with a full landing gear down
Beautiful landing -- accomplished pilots bringing that big bird down so nicely -- they almost greased it! Good job! No. 4 (starboard) engine never touched the runway. Happy landing!
Well done! Great capture! Did you add the radio later on?
feanor888 I had radio with me at the time and played it next to the cams microphone
Thanks for the Pilot experience!!!
Great video many thanks. A big bird lives to fly again. Once again many thanks for this great happy ending. Cheers mate.
Rob Trust no probs thanks for comment
Gear malfunction, but a solidly built Boeing aircraft. Everyone made it and that's what counts.
Kudos to the guy who says "or she" at 5:04.
Everyone is complimenting the pilot, which he did do a great job. But I'm here to give a pat on the back to the engineers who designed this beautiful bird well and strongly enough to land with 1 of the landing gears malfunctioned.
I played squash with the Captain of this flight recently. His young daughter was accompanying him on this trip and was sat in the passenger cabin. Imagine how proud she must have been of her dad as he safely landed the aircraft. Captain was a lovely bloke. And also annoyingly good at squash. 😅
brilliant flying by the air crew well done to everyone involved in the successful outcome
Great Capture! Superb landing by the pilots!
I am amazed nothing was harmed during this landing. The right wing landing gear didn't deploy properly. I really hope hydraulic line wasn't damage severely.
The Capitan is an artist.
Trully superb landing by the pilots.
I saw G-VROM depart today, shes fit and well again and is currrently flying to Orlando as VS27.
Fantastic shot. Well done. Do we have more details on the configuration of the landing along with a cause? I would love to see an ACI episode in the future on this.
Clipstreu Thanks. Sorry no further details but probably plenty around the net.
I'd love to know if they taxied afterwards or jacked the plane up & got the gear down. What happened afterwards?
Why have they retracted the slats during the braking and extended them again after the full stop?
With a set of brakes missing, landing/stopping distances are extended. Therefore, a pinpoint landing is required so as to extend spoilers and use the reduced braking capacity. It has nothing to do with the gear being stuck. This procedure also applies when landing on wet, snow, icy or short runways. Ret Captain.
Epic landing! That pilots deserve a raise!!
Been monitoring this one all morning on the interwebz. Hats off to the pilots on this one.
Amazing video! Incredible skill from the pilot.
It seems unlikely that the gear struts could come fully down and lock with the pressure of the aircraft pressing upon them. The gear must have been partially extended, since there were no sparks from the underside of the engines on the right wing. I suspect the pilot just wanted to put it down promptly.
All credit to the crew for such a successful landing. And all credit to the camera work that we got to see this with radio commentary. Fantastic.
Amazing landing under the circumstances. Kudos to the Capt.
What an amazing landing by the pilots with such an emergency.
This pilot is brilliant landing this plane with broken landing gear
Great footage of landing
ANY landing you walk away from is a "GOOD" landing if you can still fly the aircraft afterwards it is a "PERFECT" LANDING! Looks like a lot of "whuffo's making negative comments on this landing. Nothing wrong with this landing, well done.
Have done the VS43 to vegas flight at least a dozen times so guessing at some point must have been on this one.
Wow... Amazing landing & fantastic video work
This is why we need to keep the Queen alive.
Most reliable Aircraft and recognized Aircraft build.
maggie65ist thank you, I agree
I'm curious - as an interested observer, not as a pilot - would opening the crossfeeds and transferring some fuel over to the left wing (given that the right main failed to deploy) be considered a good idea here? It strikes me that would help to counterbalance it a bit and keep it from listing too heavily towards the absent gear.
+katie_incredible
You nailed it.
+katie_incredible You can't actually transfer fuel from one wing tank to another during flight. Transferring fuel requires the refuel manifold and the fuel feed manifold to be connected by opening the refuel/defuel valve that is in the wing refueling station, you also have to open the refuel valves for each tank, and they are also in the refueling station located on the leading edge of the left wing.. You can however feed all of the engines from one or more tanks, so maybe they could have used the fuel from the right wing first.
+MrIfixplanes Awesome, thank you for the detailed explanation!
it kind off sets also very hard.. lucky did not break the landing gears 100% unless it wanted to land on lower speed
Considering it was a gear failure, why did the captain bounce the plane on landing? Was he hoping for it to drop down? I was anticipating a smooth landing. :)
Great job and thankfully ones hurt.
But why so not gently on landing part, specially its missing some landing gear it gives much more pressure to the rest. Weather condition seems good.
softer landing required gentle engine reduction, need more speed. in this case just land the jumbo, kill the engine, fuel pump and stop as short as you can. dont know lost wheel will lead you, goin off runway not the option because it can roll the jumbo body.
Sukoco Imam
Well in fact best landing are with some power on rather than idle the pilot definitely did a positive landing a bit too hard for me but the main point is that he kept control of the plane and center line...also I don't know if you saw it but he kept engines running till the end of the video though...
Yeah agree with you, pilot do one thing or only thing he must. Concentrate on stick, pedal, path and level..
Skytrotter According to the AAIB, the crew did a perfect landing for this situation.
+Loobo2012
Reference please. Oh that's right - if you had one, you'd have already posted it 20 times.
You need to watermark your great videos as other people are now re-uploading yours as their own and taking the credit for them, unfortunately.
I wonder if there would have been any merit to transferring wing fuel to the high wing to shift the CG sideways to be more centered on the landing gear. Either before or after landing. (I'm thinking more after landing, to re-balance the plane. Being off-center in flight would only have made the plane more difficult to handle and the fuel transfer would have added one more task to the flight crew).
Great landing better video then sky news right place right time amazing London aircraft
You could just see how much weight was being put on those other landing gears just because one set was gone. Just look at how close the flaps were to the runway when he touched down!
How far from the runway were you?
This guy is a hero, so is the guy who got it on tape. Thanks.
Captain earning his pay well done these pilot's needs to be praised for their skills .
Such a beautiful plane.
i still remember virgin atlantic a340-300 made emergency landing at heathrow at year 1997 and same landing gear issue with this 1
Best ever aircraft and for sure the pilots.Excellent video.Thanks for uploading it.
+Fluke Cypriot
Good aircraft... bad piloting. Pilots grease 747-400's onto runways every day of every year around the globe.
This was a bad time to bounce on a crippled landing gear.
Would a pilot transfer or jettison fuel from the wing on the affected side to balance things out on landing?
That wasn't a particularly good landing!
There was no need to "bounce" the aircraft like that *IF* that bounce was intended, in fact it could have been dangerous if it caused the stuck gear to then deploy & strike the ground in an unstable position!
Fantastic flying by the crew at VA
God bless those pilots and the emergency crews for safely landing the plane and saving all those souls on board.
I'm watching this almost 7 years on..... what amazing and very skilled pilots Virgin have 👮🏼♂️👮🏾♂️👮🏼♀️💜 ❤ ✈
I'm not a pilot,... but why hammer the plane on the runway like that when you're already missing a gear? The plane even bounced! This plane clearly has amazing suspension
How do they know what the person they are talking with over the radio is saying? There is major static
Like in most radio comms, you soon get used to it when listening all day. Surprisingly fast as well. But things like the phonetic alphabet and numeric codes help. Also correct radio protocol has specific pronunciation e.g "niner" instead of nine and "Fife" instead of five.
I think it landed harder than it should because some of the force that should have been absorbed by the malfunctioning landing gear was distributed to the functioning ones.
What an absolute brilliant Pilot - whoever you are - you deserve to be honoured in The Queens Birthday Honours in 2015…… well done that Man!
Was that Jordi you were talking to at the end?
HeathrowSpottingHD yes
Indeed it was. Sodding freezing, mind, and I wanted to get the video up before the chap from the Mirror had a chance, as he was filming next to me.
GatwickSpotting Haha sounds good to me. Long time no speak! I'll shoot you an email soon. Hope all is well buddy!
Any ideas why the leading edge retracted and then deployed again ?
Does anyone know why the emergency vehicles don't position themselves further down the runway on emergencies like this? It always seems like they're a long way behind the aircraft. I understand that they can't afford to get mixed up in amongst a crash landing otherwise everyone's doomed. It just seems a bit strange that they're so far back when the aircraft touches down. Couldn't they get further down the runway but a safe distance off the centre line? Just curious to find out, thanks :-)
Missing 1 landing gear part didn't come down and still land perfectly right on the center line of the runway.
Although it bounce but still not really easy, there are some crosswind and with the fault, it is really hard to land perfectly. I think it is already acceptable.
Great Airmanship. Wait, did anyone else notice that the left Horizontal Stabilizer is more deflected than the right? Like is there some measure of roll control built into the B747 stabilizer that makes one deflect more than the other to aid roll. Before any smart guy comes to tell me that roll is controlled by the Ailerons and Pitch is controlled by the Stabilizer/Elevators, please be informed that I already know. I'm asking a question based on what I can see in this video.
Pilot in the loop, saved that plane. Computers will never be able to duplicate that complexity.
I'm pretty sure the bounce was intended, as a last ditch attempt to free the gear. Brilliant display by the flight crew, excellent job.
Kudos to the pilots for ending this flight safely, but I gotta say; this is by far the HARDEST 747 landing I have ever seen. Between videos and my job on an airport ramp, I have seen thousands of 747 landings, and never seen one slam down like this. This a testament to just how sturdy my favorite airplane really is. I understand the pilots were dealing with a stressful situation, but when you have broken landing gear, you want to put her down as GENTLY as possible.