"A Sky King Boeing 737-300, registration N307WA performing flight F3-3073 from Atlantic City,NJ to Charlotte,NC (USA), landed on Charlotte's runway 36C and taxied to the apron employing routine communication.
The FAA reported however that 5 passengers received minor injuries upon landing."
How can a landing injure five passengers and not be reported as hard, or at least abnormal ??
rfields5421 From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 6150 posts, RR: 25 Reply 1, posted (12 months 4 days 18 hours ago) and read 21016 times:
Quoting Gonzalo (Thread starter): How can a landing injure five passengers and not be reported as hard, or at least abnormal ??
It was reported as an incident to the FAA.
Over the years, I've seen passengers not strapped in fall out of their seats onto the aisle in normal landings. I've also seen passengers get hit on the head from opening overhead bins on a slightly hard landing.
I've also seen passengers unbuckle and start to stand up when they thought the plane was stopped, only to be thrown onto the floor by a subsequent movement of the plane.
The landing itself does not have to be "hard" or abnormal to injure idiots.
Gonzalo From Chile, joined Aug 2005, 1674 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (12 months 4 days 17 hours ago) and read 20786 times:
Quoting rfields5421 (Reply 1): Over the years, I've seen passengers not strapped in fall out of their seats onto the aisle in normal landings. I've also seen passengers get hit on the head from opening overhead bins on a slightly hard landing.
I understand your logic, I have seen laptops and suitcases falling out of the overhead bins into the head of some unfortunate passenger a couple of times.... but five people injured in the same single event looks a little high for me, if it was a "normal" landing... I tend to think that the landing was not normal at all if the result is five people injured, but I could be wrong.
SouthernDC9 From United States of America, joined Mar 2011, 263 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (12 months 4 days 16 hours ago) and read 20659 times:
Plane coming in from Atlantic City, who knows what was going on... might have just been some old ladies with carpal tunnel injuries from gripping slot machine handles or double old fashioneds...
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rfields5421 From United States of America, joined Jul 2007, 6150 posts, RR: 25 Reply 4, posted (12 months 4 days 15 hours ago) and read 20402 times:
Quoting Gonzalo (Reply 2): but five people injured in the same single event looks a little high for me, if it was a "normal" landing
That number is high, but extremely low if it was a "hard landing". A plane has to hit very, very hard to injure properly buckled in passengers, which would result in a lot of injuries, and likely a plane unable to taxi to the terminal.
Since no crew members were among the injured, I suspect a group got unbuckled early, with opening overhead bins as a second choice.
The full story will be interesting.
But I see nothing in the Charlotte newspaper or on TV websites. We may never hear the reason for the injuries.
AvroArrow From Canada, joined Sep 2001, 1040 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (12 months 4 days 8 hours ago) and read 18395 times:
Sky King? Isn't that the airline on YouTube with the crazy landing in Honduras with the ex US Airways 737? http://youtu.be/CJoXMcehrYo
Must have a lot of bored ex navy guys flying for them. JK
Give me a mile of road and I can take you a mile. Give me a mile of runway and I can show you the world.
Semaex From Germany, joined Nov 2009, 769 posts, RR: 2 Reply 6, posted (12 months 4 days ago) and read 11407 times:
Quoting rfields5421 (Reply 1): Over the years, I've seen passengers not strapped in fall out of their seats onto the aisle in normal landings. I've also seen passengers get hit on the head from opening overhead bins on a slightly hard landing.
Quoting rfields5421 (Reply 1): The landing itself does not have to be "hard" or abnormal to injure idiots.
Quoting Gonzalo (Thread starter): How can a landing injure five passengers and not be reported as hard, or at least abnormal ??
Airliners are (according to ICAO Annex 8) made to withstand at least 2.5g.
A landing which demands the structure of an aircraft to absorb 2.5g isn't just abnormal or hard, it's massively crank. You will hardly ever find a pilot which had to undergo a 2.5g landing. It's not just forgetting to flare, it's pushing the aircraft to the tarmac.
In this case, a report has to be filed, the airplane needs to go through structural checking procedures which take ages and cost a lot of money, the pilots will be questioned, all this sort of stuff.
But a landing which may cause "injuries" may be as 'valid' as any other safe landing. It's the people who got injured that need to be questioned and have their brains undergo structural checking procedures - as unpleasant as it may sound.
// You know you're an aviation enthusiast when you look at your neighbour's cars and think about fleet commonality.
tdscanuck From Canada, joined Jan 2006, 12709 posts, RR: 80 Reply 7, posted (12 months 3 days 20 hours ago) and read 7567 times:
Quoting Semaex (Reply 6): Airliners are (according to ICAO Annex 8) made to withstand at least 2.5g.
That's just to not have any structure damage. The parts that contain passengers are good up to 9g (older aircraft) or 16g (newer). To injure a buckled passenger, as already stated, takes an impact that any sane person would call a "crash", absent extenuating circumstances.
Semaex From Germany, joined Nov 2009, 769 posts, RR: 2 Reply 8, posted (12 months 3 days 20 hours ago) and read 6983 times:
Quoting tdscanuck (Reply 7): That's just to not have any structure damage. The parts that contain passengers are good up to 9g (older aircraft) or 16g (newer).
Yes, of course you're right. I was just pointing out that 2.5g is quite extreme, and still, up to this amount of stress no further inspection is required. So even if it was a hard landing and some pax got injured, if it was well below 2.5g, there's nothing really to report as far as it being an "abnormal" landing.
It's quite amazing how much those aircraft can withstand when you look at wingflex videos and the likes!
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