This is both scary as heck, and a testament to how well built commercial aircraft are…
In this post:
Air Canada 777 makes abnormal landing in Toronto
This incident happened on Monday, November 13, 2023, and involves Air Canada flight AC2 from Tokyo (HND) to Toronto (YYZ). The flight was operated by a 15-year-old Boeing 777-300ER with the registration code C-FIUV.
The 11hr20min flight was totally routine, except the last few seconds. Moments before touching down on Toronto Pearson’s runway 24L, the heavy jet made an abnormal maneuver, leading to a very dramatic landing.
As you can see in the below video, the jet seems to rapidly sink, then suddenly banks right very hard. The right rear gear makes such a hard impact that the plane bounces up, and then the left rear gear has an equally hard impact, before control is regained.
For what it’s worth, at the time of the incident, air traffic controllers were advising pilots that winds were 310 at 10 knots, gusting to 22 knots. Those gusts are pretty significant when you consider that they were 70 degrees off the runway heading, but that alone probably doesn’t explain this. It’s not clear to me if this incident was due to some last second wind shear beyond what was expected, wake turbulence, or what.
Can you imagine what that landing must have felt like for those onboard? Presumably there was no major damage to the aircraft, as it ended up flying again the next day, operating AC1 back to Tokyo.
Well done to the crew and plane!
It’s hard to know how close this was to having a different outcome, since we weren’t in the cockpit, and don’t fully know what conditions were like. Furthermore, the angle at which the video was filmed could possibly make things look more dramatic.
Regardless, a couple of things do stand out:
- The pilots seemed to do a great job recovering from the situation, and stabilizing the landing; it seems like it was too late to perform a go around by the point that this all happened
- It really is incredible how sturdy jets are; I mean, these planes weigh hundreds of thousands of pounds, and you can imagine the pressure on the gear with such a hard impact?
Bottom line
An Air Canada Boeing 777 had a dramatic landing at Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday. There was either some last minute wind shear or wake turbulence, which caused the jet to have a very unstable landing. Fortunately everything ended as well as it could, there were no injuries, and the plane didn’t sustain any damage. But goodness, that’s still quite a dramatic landing!
What do you make of this Air Canada 777 landing?
Definitely not wake turbulence. With that cross-wind, any wake would have long moved off the runway. Runway 24R is in the lee of the terminal building, and the initial loss of airspeed causing the right wing to drop appears to have occurred at about the height of the terminal building (40 to 50 feet above ground level).
YYZ Runway 24R has a bad history—the Air Canada DC-9 overrun in 1978 and the Air France Airbus...
Definitely not wake turbulence. With that cross-wind, any wake would have long moved off the runway. Runway 24R is in the lee of the terminal building, and the initial loss of airspeed causing the right wing to drop appears to have occurred at about the height of the terminal building (40 to 50 feet above ground level).
YYZ Runway 24R has a bad history—the Air Canada DC-9 overrun in 1978 and the Air France Airbus 340 overrun in 2005 (both went into the ravine at the south end) are part of its legacy.
My wife and I were on this flight! From inside the plane it was a terrifying experience. The approach seemed always to be too high and we felt like the plane had floated down the runway past the landing zone and then dropped suddenly. The pilots may have reduced power to get the plane down just as the wind dropped.
If you look at "Wake Turbulence"s extended video you will see that dozens of...
My wife and I were on this flight! From inside the plane it was a terrifying experience. The approach seemed always to be too high and we felt like the plane had floated down the runway past the landing zone and then dropped suddenly. The pilots may have reduced power to get the plane down just as the wind dropped.
If you look at "Wake Turbulence"s extended video you will see that dozens of other planes, of all sizes, landed on this runway in the crosswind with minimal upset. The pilots of AC002 did something different on final approach that made the plane vulnerable.
Even at the time it felt like an extreme event.
Damn! I reflexively pressed the stop button. That looks terrible.
That’s a wild landing!
It seems to happen mostly with 777s and with some regularity: AF from JFK some 2 years ago, also the BA from Beijing (or was it Bangalore?) always on final, but not on the actual runway like here. That was a remarkable recovery...
Always those damn trucks to ruin the scene!!!! So many spotting videos have them turning up just at the very moment and blocking the view ..and in some cases just paused there (well due to a traffic signal). Have sometimes to keep an eye on both the plane and the truck approaching and be prepared to make quick adjustments from your current spot
By the windsock, it looks likes at least a 25 knot crosswind. It probably hit a gust and the pilot recovered. Good piloting. There must not have been a more appropriate runway to deal with the wind direction.
Based on the fact that this was a sudden upset that lasted only a few seconds, my bet is that this was wake turbulence.
Either way, kudos to the pilots for successfully recovering the aircraft, especially when they were that close to the ground. Also, I now have a newfound appreciation for the landing gear.
#windshear
As you like this stuff, there was almost an accident when a Latam flight headed to the wrong airport (Catanduva, instead of SJP). They are ~60km apart and it's a small airport, doesn't even have an Iata code.
The pilot only realized that when the tower informed in which airport it was going to land, and there was a long silence after that, which I think is when the crew thought "that the hell...
As you like this stuff, there was almost an accident when a Latam flight headed to the wrong airport (Catanduva, instead of SJP). They are ~60km apart and it's a small airport, doesn't even have an Iata code.
The pilot only realized that when the tower informed in which airport it was going to land, and there was a long silence after that, which I think is when the crew thought "that the hell we are doing?".
Latam is calling for a GPS mal functioning. There is traffic audio, but only in portuguese, and it's tough to understand (but I think Ford speaks portuguese, if he wants to try).
https://www.aeroflap.com.br/en/divergence-in-GPS-almost-makes-Latam-plane-land-in-Catanduva-by-mistake-listen-to-the-radio/
https://aeroin.net/incomum-cena-do-a320-passando-sobre-catanduva-apos-aproximacao-errada-foi-registrada-em-video/
https://www.metropoles.com/colunas/rodrigo-rangel/aviao-da-latam-erra-pista-e-por-um-triz-torre-evita-tragedia-em-sp
It is amazing how resilient airplanes can be... The aviation museum at CLT is reopening soon and they just put the US Airways 1549 A320 into the new location.... if you haven't visited, you should and you'll have a new respect for the A320.
@Lucky -- "how study jets are" > I think you mean "sturdy."
Are saying jets are dumb?,
Hard to know what all is going on there, but it's difficult to fathom why they continued with the landing. Looks like some wind shear and possibly some PIO. Our policy is to go around if the approach becomes unstable at any time before we apply reverse thrust. I can't imagine AC's would be much different.
All that said, in my experience most Canadian pilots are exemplary airmen - even though an average AC...
Hard to know what all is going on there, but it's difficult to fathom why they continued with the landing. Looks like some wind shear and possibly some PIO. Our policy is to go around if the approach becomes unstable at any time before we apply reverse thrust. I can't imagine AC's would be much different.
All that said, in my experience most Canadian pilots are exemplary airmen - even though an average AC 777 captain might make less than a senior US regional captain.
Wind didn’t look that bad until the moment of touchdown. It doesn’t look like they came in too fast so probably was safer to stabilize the plane instead of trying to gain speed again. Taking off again with winds like that might be riskier
a video from inside the cabin during that landing would be more than worth seeing.
“flying again the next day, operating AC2 back to Tokyo.”
I think you mean AC1 as AC2 is the flight just arrived at Toronto and experienced this landing.
@ A_Japanese -- Fixed, thanks!
These planes are built to allow one landing gear to take the full weight of the plane on touchdown in events like this. On the other hand, it could have all gone very wrong within 1 second of that contact.
While certainly possible this is a 'job well done' by the crew, it's also possible they made decisions that made this more hazardous than otherwise. I wonder if this gets investigation, my guess is no since these things might happen more often than we realize given live stream cameras filming landings is a recent 'thing.'
This is Canada everyone working for the regulator are x Air Canada employees nothing gets checked..
My bet is wake turbulence. Wake turbulence (Google wingtip vortices) drifts with wind. 24L is parallel to 24R and the wind was blowing from right to left in this video. I bet a recent departure off of 24R was timed just perfectly with that strong wind to enable this to happy. Incredible recovery by the pilots!
The crosswind was too great for wake turbulence to be a factor, IMHO.
Definitely not wake as departures were off RW23 that day. Additionally wake is most commonly a problem in calm wind conditions, strong blowing, gusty winds tend to dissipate wake vortices much more quickly.
Additionally from the rotation point of a heavy on 24R it would be highly unlikely unlikely for the wake to transit to the touchdown zone of 24L and you would need the wind to be more or less straight down the...
Definitely not wake as departures were off RW23 that day. Additionally wake is most commonly a problem in calm wind conditions, strong blowing, gusty winds tend to dissipate wake vortices much more quickly.
Additionally from the rotation point of a heavy on 24R it would be highly unlikely unlikely for the wake to transit to the touchdown zone of 24L and you would need the wind to be more or less straight down the runway. This really isn't how wake turbulence behaves which is why parallel runway ops are so common around the World.
This was just an encounter with a strong and gusty wind.
As to why RW33L and 33R were not being used, best to ask the airlines and local politicians about that. Reduced airport movement rates makes that configuration unpopular with the airlines (delays) and there are a bunch of vocal, well off people with political clout who live in areas South of the airport.