Picture this: You’ve been relaxing on the red-eye from Paris to Toronto, hopping that jet stream from CDG to YYZ. It’s been a fairly uneventful flight, not much to complain about, aside from a crying baby a few rows away, a dude down the row thought it was a good idea to take off his shoes a few hours ago, and the person next to you is hogging the armrest. It’s just a flight. That is, until the pilot smacks the tail of the aircraft into the tarmac and has to turn around to give it another shot.
Thankfully no injuries were reported after Air France Airbus A350-900 flight AF356 touched down on Sunday. The damage to the aircraft wasn’t inconsequential, but it proved still airworthy after bouncing off the frozen Canadian runway. After hitting the ground, the pilot pushed forward on the throttle and got the plane back up in the air instead of risking further strike. It then initiated a 15-minute go-around and came back in to land again, this time without issue.
This kind of tailstrike can happen when an overly hard touchdown rocks the plane back on its tail. This can be caused by a number of factors from pilot error, poor weather conditions, or issues with the landing gear. There’s no indication which is the case here. The aircraft in question is just two years old.
The plane was intended to turn around and return to Paris later in the day, but this flight was naturally cancelled. It’ll take some time to get the plane repaired and back into the air. Tailstrikes are not entirely uncommon, though this one seems to have been a fairly severe strike, and will require an airworthiness study of the structural components.