Hamburg wing strike - more details

You may remember the A320 which had a wing strike on approach to Hamburg at the beginning of March. The German investigation agency BFU has released a preliminary report about the moments before the accident.

Without reading the whole report it appears the following points can be gathered.

1) The plane was flying under dual control (i.e. both pilots were flying using the side sticks. Apparently the A320 allows this by summing the inputs), although the co-pilot was in charge of the approach
2) 50% of the approaches in the previous 10 minutes had resulted in a 'go-around' or aborted landing
3) The captain had over 10,200 hours experience including 4,120 on the A320 but the young lady who was in charge of the approach had only 327 hours on the A320
4) The crosswind at the time of the runway was 3knots over the maximum stated A320 crosswind component allowed for a manual landing, with gusts up to 17kt over the limit
5) The crew were offered an alternate runway where the crosswind would have been less, but declined (They ultimately landed on this runway after the wing strike)

So let me put this into context for you (or let me play Devils Advocate.....)

"You're an experienced A320 captain with many, many hours in type. You are flying into a runway where you know that crosswind issues have caused half the planes in front of you to miss their approaches. You decide not only to continue your approach to the runway, despite being given a more suitable runway to land on, but you then hand the flying of the plane over to a young, inexperienced co-pilot who then makes the approach into conditions that are outside the operating parameters of the plane you're flying.

And then the wing hits."

Hmmmm... It seems fairly black and white when you look at it like that doesn't it?

However, let me put a different spin on the same facts.

"As an experienced pilot with many hours on type you realise that the only way for your co-pilot to gain experience of real life crosswind landings is to allow her to fly them herself. Knowing that half the planes in front of you have already managed the landing without a problem - and realising that the crosswind parameters were marginal due to gusting, you hand the approach over to the co-pilot and keep a hold of the controls to help should the need arise. With the two of you working the controls you fly the plane onto the runway where a slight gust lifts one wing a little. You elect to go around and try the less hazardous approach only to realise later that the wing had made contact."

In the heat of a crosswind landing it is very easy to make decisions that - in hindsight - are not the best ones to make. I, personally, have made crosswind landings that were 'interesting' to say the least. However in a Piper Warrior with just me and the instructor there's a lot less riding on a careful approach than an A320 with passengers and freight on board.

I'll keep an eye out on this for you.

As you can see, the facts can support two different interpretations and it then becomes difficult to see who, if anyone, is at fault.

Although if it was me I would have gone for the other runway regardless....