What happened
On October 1, 2014, an Embraer ERJ190-100 STD, registration PH-EZV, was operating a scheduled flight from Prague to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Due to low visibility conditions at Schiphol, the flight crew prepared for an ILS CAT I approach and intended to execute an automatic landing.
During the final stages of the approach, the aircraft maintained a constant rate of descent without performing the necessary flare. At approximately 50 feet above the runway, the captain realized the aircraft was not behaving as expected for an autoland and manually pulled back on the control column to reduce the descent rate. This intervention resulted in a hard landing, causing damage to the operating rods of the left-hand main landing gear door and the innermost right-hand flap. There were no injuries among the 86 passengers or the four crew members on board.
The investigation
The Dutch Safety Board examined the flight data from the Quick Access Recorder (QAR) and interviewed the crew to determine why the automatic landing failed to execute the flare. The investigation focused on the aircraft's configuration and the flight mode annunciator (FMA) indications.
Investigators found that the aircraft was not configured correctly for an automatic landing. Specifically, the aircraft was set to a configuration that prevented the autopilot from initiating the flare mode. Despite this, the pilots did not observe any abnormal indications on the FMA that would suggest the aircraft was configured for a manual landing rather than an automatic one. The crew noted that the system indications appeared consistent with their previous experience, as they had primarily performed manual landings.