A320 fighting massive crosswinds...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe...ane/index.html

(CNN) -- Battling blustery weather, a Lufthansa Airlines flight scraped its wing on the ground during a landing attempt in Hamburg, Germany, over the weekend.

Internet footage of the Lufthansa A320 as it attempts a landing Saturday at Hamburg, Germany.

The plane recovered and landed safely the second time around, the spokesman said.

Dramatic amateur video of the incident that appeared on the Internet showed the Airbus A320 teetering as it tried to land during the brutal winter storm on Saturday.

As it nears the tarmac, one wing visible scrapes the ground.

"As we were about to touch down, a gust of wind pressed the left wing towards the ground," a Lufthansa pilot identified only as Oliver A. said in a statement.

"We pulled up immediately. A maneuver we practice in training very often."
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The airline said the pilot has been flying for Lufthansa for 17 years.

Airline spokesman Wolfgang Weber said the left winglet, a fin at the end of the wing scraped the ground after a gust of wind tipped the plane. Damage to the plane was minimal and not structural. He said the plane is already back in service.

I'm no pilot but that sure doesn't look like it was even safe to attempt to land in that steady wind much less the gusts. Look at the angle of the plane compared to its flight.... foolish imo.

looks like a 9yr old trying to fly a new plane that he got for xmas

that looks like it took some piloting skills though.

Larger aircraft will rotate the gear to line up even if the fuselage is off-axis. The 747 and C5 Galaxy both do this (as examples).

Look carefully. Single runway. No option for an 'into the wind' landing. I would suspect he was bingo fuel or he'd have been re-routed to another field.

Just another day at the office.

That crabbing is proper cross wind landing technique. I would have thought that an airport the size ofHamburg would have another runway to use.

You can almost smell the stink from the passengers as the plane skids on the runway and takes off again

CNN had a picture of the winglet. The wing was bent starting about five feet back from the tip, and the skin had separated from the airframe.

I've never been on a plane, but that doesn't look like it would be any fun to be involved with.

Wren, how do you know so much about everything? :P

I worked in Aviation. Probably before you were born.