2022-04 · NASA ASRS report 1892471
EMB ERJ Flight Crew reported a leading edge slat failure on approach after a bird strike. The flight crew elected to perform a go around and returned to land at destination airport.
On the ILS XXL approach into ZZZ; I was Pilot Flying and my First Officer was Pilot Monitoring. At approx 2;500 feet in descent we received an EICAS (engine indicating and crew alerting system) Slat Fail. The First Officer also mentioned he had a loud pop. I elected to discontinue the approach and perform a go around. Once leveled off; I transferred flight controls to the PM (FO) and ran the Slat Fail QRH (quick reference handbook). ZZZ gave us delays vectors while running the QRH. There seemed to be confusion between us and ATC. I think they thought we had a flight control malfunction despite stating we had a slat malfunction. They then [assigned priority handling] on their behalf and we gave SOB and FOB. The slats were stuck at 1 but flaps were able to be extended to 5 for landing. After running the QRH; I took back the flight controls to perform the landing. After landing we exited the runway and had the ARFF (airport rescue and firefighting) trucks perform an inspection on the right wing to verify there wasn't any damage to the wing that would prevent taxi back to the gate.
While on approach (about 4 miles outside of the final approach fix) First Officer heard a loud thud favoring the right side of the aircraft; seconds later an EICAS (engine indicating and crew alerting system) message (Slat Fail) appeared. Crew initiated a soft go around to run QRH (quick reference handbook). Following QRH procedure; we returned to field for a Slat 3; Flaps 5 landing. This configuration raised the stall speed and led to a harder than normal landing (as expected). Upon vacating the runway environment priority vehicles searched the aircraft for damage (they were notified that we heard a banging noise on the right side of the aircraft). We were told that no damage was suspected. Upon our arrival at the gate (we left the aircraft in a landing configuration) ramp personnel brought it to our attention that we hit a bird.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
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