What happened
On July 1, 2017, at 15:46 UTC, an Embraer ERJ-175LR operated by an unnamed operator experienced a hard landing while arriving at Kraków Airport (EPKK). The incident was not immediately reported by the flight crew through an Air Safety Report (ASR) or the operator's internal logbook. The event was later identified by the operator's safety department via an automated notification from the Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) system, which flagged that the maximum vertical load during landing had reached 1.81 g.
The investigation
The investigation focused on the flight data and the subsequent maintenance inspections. Following the detection of the high vertical load, the operator's Maintenance Control Center (MCC) determined that a first-stage inspection for hard landings, as prescribed by the Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM), was required. This inspection was performed on July 10, 2017, after the aircraft arrived in Warsaw, and revealed no damage. The aircraft was permitted to continue operating for ten flight segments before a second-stage inspection was conducted on July 11, 2017, which also found no structural damage.
Weather conditions at Kraków Airport at the time of the incident were reported as having visibility greater than 10 km, winds from 230 degrees at 13 knots, and few cumulonimbus clouds at 5,000 feet.
Findings
- The primary cause of the incident was an improperly executed flare maneuver, which led to excessive vertical speed at touchdown.
- The crew perceived the landing to have been performed normally.
- There was a delay in the operator receiving the FDM data due to an unspecified technical issue during the data download process.
- The crew failed to submit an official safety report or record the event in the required logbook.