wrote in message
oups.com...
There is no way that is real, unless it was some sort of test flight -
maybe an coupled approach test gone awry? First off, it doesn't look or
sound like there were any nasty winds that would've caused that (you
can hear people in the video, and not the sound of wind rushing over a
microphone), and if there had been any PAX onboard, there would have
been numerous injuries. If that had been a normal commercial flight,
the pilot would have gone around as soon as the plane began sliding
that bad. I also question the ability of the nosegear to take that sort
of punishment.

I fly all the time in commercial jets for business purposes, and the
worst landing I've ever had was flying in to Las Vegas on a Southwest
737. Las Vegas is always bumpy, due to the desert heat (I suppose), but
on this particular landing it suddenly felt as if the plane got smacked
by the hand of God herself, felt like we suddenly dropped a good 30
feet straight down. Overhead bins were popping open, stuff like that.
Regardless, we didn't land like that - as soon as that happened, the
engines fired up, flaps started retracting and the pilot went around.
Came on the intercom a few minutes later and said the winds had shifted
suddenly, and they were going to land from the opposite direction.

Any pilots want to comment? I'm just a sim-jockey, PP student with 0.5
hours in the cockpit ;-).

Bryan

Here in Phoenix it's almost as sure a thing as death and taxes to "turn" Sky
Harbor around each afternoon due to the wind shift. I would think Vegas
would be similar.

Your flight may have been on the very tail end of the early ops and had you
arrived five minutes later, they probably would have already turned the
airport and not had the wild ride.

I've only had three true "white knuckle" experiences flying commercially and
all three were on DC10s within about 20 miles of landing at Philadelphia
International during the winter.

Maybe the Delaware River has some weird effect on surface winds?

Jay B