A319 First Officer reported failure of the rudder pedal adjustment locking pin during landing. The Captain assumed the controls and a normal landing was performed.

Date: 2023-05 · Aircraft: A319 · Phase: landing

Anomalies: aircraft-equipment-problem-critical|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-published-material-policy|ground-event-encounter-loss-of-aircraft-control

Synopsis

A319 First Officer reported failure of the rudder pedal adjustment locking pin during landing. The Captain assumed the controls and a normal landing was performed.

Narrative

On Aircraft X; ZZZ-ZZZ1 we had a failure of the First Officer (FO) rudder pedal adjustment pin. During preflight I adjusted the rudder pedals to my height and during the taxi control check; I shadowed the Captain (CA) on the pedals without adding pressure as I would normally do. I was pilot flying for this leg and first noticed an issue on takeoff. Shortly after the control transfer and thrust application; my rudder pedals slid two clicks back and seemingly locked in place. I could still reach the pedals and just assumed they had not properly locked before T/O. I informed the CA what had happened after the T/O phase was complete and we agreed to have maintenance check it out in ZZZ1 just in case.During the descent; I briefed the CA to be ready to take the controls just in case the pedals started sliding on me again. He agreed but in our debrief we agreed the better option would have been to have him take the whole approach and landing at this point. The approach was uneventful. The landing was a crosswind and required rudder input. I added rudder to straighten the nose and touched down with the left mains first. Around this time before the right mains had touched the ground; my rudder pedals gave way and slid all the way forward out of my reach. The crosswind correction started to come out without the required rudder input and I told the CA; take the flight controls!" He did and corrected the airplane back to center line. The bad timing of the required high speed control transfer caused the remainder of the touchdown to be firm and led to us missing the activation of the reversers. I did notice after a few moments and tried to communicate to the CA but I inadvertently said; "no spoilers before correcting to reversers." By that time; the CA had already slowed the aircraft with the brakes enough to make the high speed taxiway. The rest of the taxi was uneventful but when I got to the gate I tested the pedals again. They could freely slide fully forward and aft without ever locking into place."

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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.