This was footage of a BA A320, flight BAW492, from Heathrow to Gibraltar today. Around Gibraltar, the winds at 2000ft were around 40kts! It ended up diverting to Malaga instead of a second attempt at landing.
Bet there are a few sick bags that will need disposing of on that flight!
Here’s the FR24 playback for those wanting to see:
I had a similar experience on a Delta Airlines 737-800 landing during a thunderstorm at KMSP the pilot started crabing the plane during final. The landing reminded me of how I used to land in infinite flight hard and bumpy and at the end give up and slam the plane on the runway. Then we had to sit on the taxiway for over 45 minutes
What I’m wondering is whether this maneuver was actually caused by turbulence or if it could’ve been a “waving” maneuver to indicate the tower that they’re having radio issues.
To me it seems more like an off guard pilot caught in a panic reaction to the initial gust and a lot of subsequent over-corrections. I believe that in the last 2-3 banks there was a change in pilot on controls as suddenly the degree of the banks drop fast and it is back stable in almost an instant.
I don’t think that’s a manoeuvre, it’s dangerous to do. Usually you will only see something similar on delivery flights just after takeoff to simulate waving but that’s about it and that’s usually on planes with no passengers. Also a few BA pilots commented on the abnormal winds around Gibraltar alongside the video so I can only assume it was come crazy wind 😂
I just saw this yesterday. I believe it gives a well educated explanation as to what happened. It’s not of course the result of an official investigation on the incident, more like an insight from a pilot based on the video from the cabin that was published.
