Career Pilot: A new Low

Pilots love to say that a poor approach leads to a poor landing, but this was not the case. The approach was fine for many miles. It was in the last 30 feet that I made the crucial error of flying like I was in my previoius airplane. What follows is a breakdown of what happened and why (excuses, if you must).

I recently upgraded to captain at my airline, which landed me in the left seat of a Boeing 737, rather than the right seat of the Airbus A320 I’d been flying for the past four years and some 2,800 hours. I’d flown the 737 before, and during my simulator and ground training many memories came flooding back to me. Training went well and my experience made it less stressful than previous initial-qualification events. Oh, and my simulator landings were fine.

After being turned out of the schoolhouse, it was time for initial operating experience where I was to pilot actual flights with an instructor captain. The first leg I flew was the 3.5-hour leg to Grand Cayman. That gave us plenty of time to talk about the approach, the relatively short 7,000-foot runway, and the use of 40-degree flaps and maximum autobrakes. I don’t like using max autobrakes, but the airport’s lack of a parallel taxiway at the east end requires airplanes to make a one-eighty and get off the runway quickly. Rolling to the end would be a little rude to the next arrival.

As mentioned, the approach went well until about 30 feet above the ground, when I started pulling off the power. For some reason, despite all the simulator landings and arrival/approach briefings, muscle memory reverted to my Airbus landing technique. Anyone who flies a 737 can see where I took a horrible turn. With 40 degrees of flaps, the drag is massive and requires keeping power in to five or 10 feet at most.

My instructor was too late in seeing me pull the power off and even if he had called for it, I likely wouldn’t have heard it over the rapid countdown from the radar altimeter: “30, 20, 10.” I pulled back on the yoke to arrest the sink rate, but the airplane essentially laughed at me and responded only by raising the nose a few degrees while maintaining the same descent rate. The one thing I didn’t screw up was my awareness of a tail strike if I pulled back more. I gritted my teeth and waited for the inevitable.

We hit hard enough to bounce back in the air what felt like 10 feet, but likely was only two or three. Since the ground spoiler system sensed wheel spin-up and weight on the wheels, the speed brakes and spoilers all deployed, quickly destroying nearly all the wing’s lift—while still a few feet in the air, by the way. I saw my instructor make a grab for the yoke to make sure I didn’t pull and strike the tail. But the second hit (every bit as hard as the first) knocked his hands away. Maximum autobrakes kicked in, helping to slam the nose down while decelerating the airplane so rapidly that the reversers hadn’t completely spooled up before I had to begin the stow process.

About the only thing that went right with the landing was reinforcing passenger use of seat belts during landing. You know it’s bad when experienced flight attendants say it was the worst landing they’ve ever felt. Thankfully, I didn’t succeed in deploying any of the oxygen masks from the overhead bins.

While I could have hidden behind the cockpit door as the passengers filed off, I elected to own it and stood at the cockpit entrance. I took plenty of jabs, quips, and dagger eyes while I apologized with my tail firmly between my legs. Let’s hope this worst landing ever is behind me for good. After all, I set the bar pretty high.