ANA Airlines 767 Has Hard Landing at Tokyo’s Narita Airport [VIDEO]
ANA Airlines Boeing 767
An ANA Airlines Boeing 767 suffered a hard landing at Tokyo’s Narita Airport (NRT) yesterday heavily damaging the aircraft according to reports.
ANA Flight 956 was coming in from Bejing, China with 193 people on board and bounced hard off the runway a first time (see video below) before landing nose first.
The TSN (Japan) has reported the 767 sustained ‘substantial’ damage with structural creases near the middle of the fuselage.
There was no inclement weather so Japanese authorities are investigating the cause of the hard landing.
There were no reported injuries.
VIDEO:
Image: Flickr [contri]
Category: Airnation
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WOW! Thank god the plane stayed level on the runway. Tokyo’s Narita Airport has had a lot of “hard landings” caught on camera, including the MD11 flown by FedEx that flipped over upon landing in 2009. The airport is known for it’s notoriously strong winds which make gentle landings very difficult.
I’m glad this happened with ANA’s 767 and not their 787… The 787′s plastic fuselage might not have “bent” like it did with this 767, but rather just break right open. This is exactly what i’ve always feared about the 787.
All i have to say is GOOD JOB pilots and good job 767… This could have ended very differently!
Hey Chris, maybe the 787 would have bent like playdoh and then they can just bend it back! You think? :)
Ehh, i’ve seen and felt a sample of the composite skin in person (at Boeing in WA) and it’s not like typical plastics that bend and act rubbery. It feels like metal and has absolutely NO give to it whatsoever. If you tried to bend it, it would crack right in half. It has the feel of solid glass rather than plexiglass. No way would a composite skin have crimped like the skin of the 767. It would have simply cracked open like a beer bottle!
With all due respect Chris, I have a very hard time believing that. I don’t think Boeing would have invested billions of dollars in a plane that wasn’t going to at least be on equal footing (and I’m sure much more) in its structural integrity compared to a plane that was designed 25 (?) years ago.
I can promise you, the composite skin used on the 787 would not have “bent” and “crimped” like the aluminum skin did on this 767- It would have simply cracked. I’m sure the “frame” of the 787 is structurally similar to that of the 767, but the skin isn’t. I’m afraid that the composite skin’s resistance to “bending” would be powerful enough to crack the fuselage rather than “bend” like it did on this 767.
Here’s a video demonstration showing how “stiff” the composite skin is. If you held it in your hand, it would feel like solid glass. It has absolutely NO flexibility to it whatsoever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DE8LZcZgn4
If this incident happened to a 787 instead of a 767, the skin would have completely resisted, causing more stress on the “frame” of the plane. In the case of the 767, the skin was able to “flex” which reduced the forces on the frame and passengers. If the skin were to resist, the “energy” from the hard landing would have to be dispersed somewhere else- most likely causing more damage to the frame, and likely splitting the composite skin all around. It’s simple physics… The composite skin cannot bend. It will only crack. In a rare incident like this, the 787 would not have held up in the same way. Boeing doesn’t have to design the 787 to hold up in this rare event. These are the very events i’m afraid of!
‘It has absolutely NO flexibility to it whatsoever.’
You are pretty much completely wrong on this. It DOES have flexibility. Where do you get your information?
Rick, you’re incorrect. I’ve felt the material in my hand- it’s completely rigid, no flexibility whatsoever. I was given a large section of the composite skin that’s used on the 787 as well as an equivalently sized piece of aluminum used on standard models, and the difference was amazing. The composite skin was a LOT lighter and a “night and day” in terms of flexibility.
Re 787 and hard landings. Boeing performed a drop test to meet FAA FAR requirements since the 787 was a composite design.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2003849110_boeingtest23.html
Best advice is for the pilot not to get him or herself caught in this type of landing. You can design a plane for “what if’s” ad nauseum but beyond some point the structure will give way. You can’t make it heavier, safer and more expensive.
I know Boeing didn’t officially release any results, but the word was that Boeing was very happy with the results. Like I’ve said before, if they didn’t think it wasn’t going to be stronger, they wouldn’t have built the thing.
Keep in mind that this test was a vertical drop (i saw pictures of the event). In the case of this 767 in this incident, the fuselage “bent” due to the hard landing- it wasn’t a vertical drop. I have no doubt in my mind (after feeling the material in my hand) that the composite skin of the 787 would NEVER have “bent” and “crumpled” like the aluminum skin of the 767 during this landing. The composite skin simply cannot “bend” like aluminum. All of the stress that was dissipated in the bending of the aluminum skin of the 767 would have transferred to the airframe of a 787 and to the passengers as well. It’s simple physics, not a myth. Airplanes have no regulations that control the “bending” of a fuselage- Boeing isn’t held to any standards when it comes to incidences like this. Boeing did their testing in private because no one (cough FAA cough) mandated the results be publicized.
Chris is convinced that the composite material of the 787 would not bend under loads similar to those imposed on the 767 accident in the video. He also feels the material would just fracture completely. Since Boeing had to assume certain loads under different circumstances, we have to assume they did a job that met or exceeded the requirements of FAR-25 and the regs of the other regulatory agencies that certificated the airplane for their countries.
Is it possible that while the structure would not bend much, it (under the same loads as the 767 encountered) just stay intact and not have been damaged.
Also on June 22nd Cris said that he was sure the Framework of the 787 was similar to that of the 767 and implies that just the skin is different. While it appears that the 787 does have former’s and stringers they are also composite.
Since the 787 is made different it will no doubt along the way suffer some different structural failures than aluminum airplanes. In the long run whatever can go wrong probably will go wrong, but if in the end the overall failure rate and accident rate is better than what we have had up to now, that is called progress.
Tom