Investigators’ preliminary findings regarding the Endeavor Air regional jet crash at Toronto confirm the initial impression that the aircraft exhibited little flare before the hard landing.
The flight operations manual for the MHIRJ CRJ900 indicates that a flare for landing should be initiated 20-30ft above ground.
Pilots should increase pitch to slow the descent rate, then maintain back-pressure on the control yoke at 20ft to hold the attitude, while reducing thrust to the idle setting.
The pitch at touchdown should normally be around 3°-8° depending on the reference speed – the CRJ900 has a long fuselage, and crews risk a tail-strike if pitch increases beyond 11°.
But the Transportation Safety Board of Canada has disclosed that the Endeavor aircraft’s pitch was just 1° at touchdown.
The inquiry into the 17 February accident has yet to reach conclusions on the lack of flare.
But it would have reduced the lift component and prevented the arrest of a rapid descent which appears to have commenced after the jet encountered a wind gust at about 150ft.
This “performance-increasing” gust increased the airspeed to 154kt, says the inquiry, above the reference speed for the approach, and the crew reduced thrust.
But the descent rate increased to more than 1,100ft/min and, according to the safety board, the threshold for a hard landing is 600ft/min.
The inquiry has not indicated why the aircraft’s attitude remained largely flat, but the lack of flare would have done little to slow the descent.
As a result of the high descent rate, and a slight right bank, the jet landed heavily on its right-hand main landing-gear which collapsed on touchdown, 420ft beyond the threshold of runway 23.
