American A321neo makes VERY hard landing in Hawaii

[PHXPhlyer]

American Airlines Plane Makes Hard Landing In Maui, Six Injured

https://onemileatatime.com/news/america ... ding-maui/

In this post:

American A321neo makes VERY hard landing in Hawaii
Two thoughts about this hard landing story
Bottom line
American A321neo makes VERY hard landing in Hawaii
This incident happened on Saturday, January 27, 2024, and involves American Airlines flight AA271 from Los Angeles (LAX) to Maui (OGG). The flight was operated by a roughly three-year-old Airbus A321neo with the registration code N416AN, and it was carrying 167 passengers and seven crew members.

The flight was operating a bit behind schedule, as it left Los Angeles nearly 90 minutes late, arriving in Maui nearly 80 minutes late. However, that wasn’t a big deal compared to what happened upon landing.


AA271 flight status
The aircraft reportedly had such a hard landing that six people were treated for injuries, including five flight attendants and one passenger. Fortunately the injuries weren’t serious, and all six people were released later in the day.

American has acknowledged that the aircraft “experienced an issue upon landing,” and that it “taxied to the gate under its own power and customers deplaned normally.”

Following the incident, the aircraft was taken out of service for a hard landing inspection. The aircraft was supposed to return to Los Angeles as flight AA212, but that flight ended up getting canceled. The following morning, the aircraft is still on the ground in Maui.


An American Airbus A321neo had a rough landing in Hawaii
Two thoughts about this hard landing story
Hard landings — even ones with injuries — happen. It’s unfortunate, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is now investigating this incident, and I’m sure we’ll find out the cause. What I find the strangest about this story, though, is that five of the six injuries were among flight attendants.

In theory, flight attendants should be best positioned for a rough landing, as they’re strapped in much tighter (with a harness) than just the average passenger with a seatbelt.

So I can’t help but wonder why they were the ones who primarily suffered injuries, while passengers didn’t? Does this relate to how flight attendant jump seats face backwards, and somehow that impacts the g-forces during a hard landing in a negative way?

Also, I’m exhausted about how the first response to basically every aviation story is to blame it on DEI. I mean, my gosh, with absolutely no information, that’s the conclusion we come to? While we’ve certainly had some incidents recently, aviation is as safe as it has ever been in terms of fatalities per number of people traveling.

Look, I’m not here to argue the merit of DEI, because that’s exhausting, especially on the internet. But are we simply going to assume that every single aviation incident is due to DEI? How are we going to justify all of the accidents that happened for decades, at a time when there was even less diversity in the cockpit? Are we going to argue that the white dude who tried to turn off the engines of a Horizon Air jet last year was also hired due to DEI? Or what are we going to blame that on?

It’s sad the extent to which reality just doesn’t matter to people anymore. “Well, someone made a mistake, let’s immediately assume it wasn’t a white guy, because they never screw up.”


Bottom line
An American Airlines Airbus A321neo had such a hard landing in Maui that six people were injured, including five flight attendants. The return flight ended up being canceled. I’m curious to see if this is just because the plane needs to be inspected, or if there’s some structural damage beyond that.

While most of us have probably experienced a landing that felt hard, it’s next level when flight attendants are injured as a result of it…

PP

[Wodrick]

At risk of Grandmother and eggs.

With an Airbus there are two, defined, levels of 'Hard Landing' the requirements of them are quite different.
The first step is to check the severity of the landing, you get the touchdown G from the CFDS.
If it is below a certain figure, say 2G can't remember after 16 years, than a defined inspection is required, different but not too different to an heavy (overweight) landing check.
If over that than a much more intense inspection is required, if available we put it in a hangar, obiously defects found had to be rectified.
If at Base they would be taken to the company hangar, away then we would probably send a work party.
Time on ground depends on findings.

[Boac]

On the 737, you could tell if it was a hard landing if the Hosties' knickers were round their ankles - or maybe that were summat else....?

[PHXPhlyer]

From AvHerald:

https://avherald.com/h?article=5143e333&opt=0

Accident: American A21N at Kahului on Jan 27th 2024, hard landing causes injuries
By Simon Hradecky, created Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 17:28Z, last updated Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 17:28Z

An American Airlines Airbus A321-200N, registration N416AN performing flight AA-271 from Los Angeles,CA to Kahului,HI (USA), landed on Kahului's runway 20 but touched down hard at about 14:05L (00:05Z Jan 28th). The aircraft rolled out without further incident, vacated the runway and stopped on the parallel taxiway. 5 cabin crew and one passenger received injuries and were taken to a local hospital.

The FAA reported: "American Airlines Flight 271, an Airbus A320, made a hard landing on Runway 20 at Kahului Airport in Hawaii at approximately 2 p.m. local time. Contact the airline for passenger information. The FAA will investigate."

Maui Police Department reported 6 individuals were taken to a hospital in stable condition.

The airline reported 5 cabin crew and one passenger were taken to a hospital and were released after the aircraft encountered an "issue" on landing in Kahului.

Metars:
PHOG 280254Z 20017KT 10SM SCT040 25/21 A2985 RMK AO2 PK WND 20027/0231 SLP112 T02500206 53004=
PHOG 280154Z 20016G26KT 10SM CLR 26/21 A2983 RMK AO2 PK WND 20028/0119 SLP106 T02610206=
PHOG 280054Z 20017G25KT 10SM FEW035 SCT060 26/21 A2983 RMK AO2 PK WND 19030/0023 SLP106 T02610206=
PHOG 272354Z 20023KT 10SM FEW020 SCT045 27/21 A2983 RMK AO2 PK WND 19030/2319 SLP108 T02670206 10272 20233 58029=
PHOG 272254Z 20016KT 10SM SCT025 SCT050 26/21 A2986 RMK AO2 PK WND 19027/2155 SLP118 T02610206=
PHOG 272154Z 20016G26KT 10SM SCT025 SCT050 26/21 A2990 RMK AO2 PK WND 17028/2129 SLP128 T02560206=
PHOG 272054Z 18016G26KT 10SM SCT030 SCT050 25/21 A2992 RMK AO2 PK WND 18027/2019 SLP137 T02500206 50006=


Reader Comments: (the comments posted below do not reflect the view of The Aviation Herald but represent the view of the various posters)
@anonymous Are you accusing the cabin crew of faking injuries?
By (anonymous) on Monday, Jan 29th 2024 00:00Z

I don't think you understand how pressure waves are transmitted through structures and human skeletons, or what constructive interference means, in pressure wave propagation. Those phenomena have more to do with impact-related injuries than profit sharing and the age of the current contract.

Flight Attendant Injuries
By (anonymous) on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 23:45Z

The company recently released a whooping 1% profit sharing despite record revenues and crews have a contract that is a decade old. Makes sense to me why everyone on the crew was hurt in my opinion.


By Lee on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 19:04Z

The angle of most pax seats is now almost fully vertical, very little difference.

Still, 2.7g isnt 'that' much vertical loading - I have read reports here of over 3g and no one injured.

Again, little odd that most (all?) of the FAs were injured? I wonder if that 1 pax was non-rev as well ....



@El Burro
By KKN on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 19:00Z

Thank you for the clarification (and the additional background information!). FAA involvement made me wonder about possible regulation conformance aspects.

I fully acknowledge that other ways exist to classify occurrences than within the scope of this site, and this might not be viewed as an accident yet by those deciding.

FAA vs NTSB
By El Burro on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 18:52Z

The FAA is involved because this is directly related to crew action. The crew was a check airman with a brand new FO. The NTSB may very well get involved, the DFDR download showed a bounced severe hard landing, 2.7Gs on the MLG. Depending on the damage discovered, it could get classified later as an accident.

FA Seats
By GeorgeNTravels on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 18:50Z

Nothing to do with angle of FA seats.


By KKN on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 18:43Z

Why would the FAA claim to take over accident investigation? Too minor in their view for NTSB?

F.A. Injuries
By C.D.D. on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 18:11Z

The injuries to the flight attendants could be due to the upright nature of the seat backs on their jump seats. The lack of recline would place more of the sudden vertical deceleration into their spines.


injuries
By Lee on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 17:45Z

Im curious as to how 5 FAs were injured and only 1 pax, usually it should be the other way around as FA seats are typically positioned in a way to keep them secure (rear-facing, shoulder belts, etc.).



By (anonymous) on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 17:51Z

The one pax is a lawyer

injuries
By Lee on Sunday, Jan 28th 2024 17:45Z

Im curious as to how 5 FAs were injured and only 1 pax, usually it should be the other way around as FA seats are typically positioned in a way to keep them secure (rear-facing, shoulder belts, etc.).

PP

[Boac]

One wonders if a bit more base training might have been prudent......................

[PHXPhlyer]

My 20+ year old memories of new hire initial AirBus training are: Checklists, SOPs, Automation, T/O and Landings, including CAT II,III approaches, and Emergency Procedures.
Hand flying was usually limited to T/Os and Landings with at least one hand flown OEI ILS.
IOE was mostly just flying the plane.
My first flight (first time actually as crew on a jet aircraft with a full load of paying pax to boot) was as PM just to get the feel of things. Then after that I was mostly PF.
My first flight actually flying the plane was into BWI to CAT 1 mins (200' and 1/2 mile). Piece of cake, just like in the sim.
Coming back west everything was visuals and all a$$holes and elbows. I wish that the transponder code would have displayed the equivalent of "Student Pilot Onboard" for a little more consideration from controllers. Visual approaches were something to be learned on the line. They were all backed up with ILS but the mostly turned you in abeam the OM and getting an AirBus to go down and slow down was quite the steep learning curve.
No real surprise that the FO on IOE was PF on this flight.

PP