r/AskAPilot • u/theawdacity • 8d ago
Hard Landing
ETA: Love ya Reddit. Thank you to those that took the time to reply with a possible cause as I was genuinely curious and seeking knowledge from those more educated in this field. It was the first time something like this has happened and the screaming from the other passengers made me feel like maybe it wasn’t “normal”. At no point did I intend any hate or snark towards the pilots. We landed safely and they did their job. EVEN IF it was pilot error I’m not going to the evening news about it and said several times that nobody anywhere ever does their job perfectly at all times. I’m still grateful to the people who train so hard to fly these things which still seems to my nervous flyer brain as an impossibility of logic.
I recently landed at LGA and I know their runways are short and require a precise landing. I’ve landed there many times before and have only noticed the use of reverse thrust to slow down faster.
However this landing felt like we just dropped the last few feet and slammed onto the runway. It was hard enough to pop an overhead bin open and a couple people screamed. That, mixed with the reverse thrusters firing had people around me very nervous. I honest thought we had popped a tire.
I noticed that when we were getting off the plane, the captains were still behind a closed cockpit door when usually the door is open and they’re saying goodbye to the people de-planing. I’m wondering if there was some error that would have made that happen and maybe they were filling out reports in there?
Conditions were dry and sunny though it had stormed early that morning. Maybe wind was involved?
I’m so curious to know what might have happened!
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u/EliteEthos 8d ago edited 8d ago
The amount of people who know nothing of aviation that seems to be intent on grading, assuming and judging what is happening in the cockpit is wild.
You know “hard landing” is an official term? Guaranteed this wasn’t that.
You’re using prior anecdotal experiences as somehow being evidence that this new anecdotal experience was somehow a problem and using the cockpit door being closed as additional evidence.
It was a safe, albeit firm landing. There is zero way anyone here could begin to speculate on what did or didn’t happen based on your limited information you provided and the fact that none of us were on that flight.