Lufthansa Cargo Flight 8460
McDonnell Douglas MD-11F · Crashed on landing due to hard touchdown
From Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA) to Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA10RA079
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 2
- Survivors
- 2
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 2
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
McDonnell Douglas MD-11F
- Flight
- LH8460
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-11
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- D-ALCQ
- Operator
- Lufthansa Cargo
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Route
- From Frankfurt Main Airport (FRA)To Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Psychological
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Lufthansa Cargo Flight 8460 was an international cargo flight operated by a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 which crashed upon landing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on 27 July 2010. Both crew members, the only people on board, were injured but survived.
Accident
Flight 8460 was an international scheduled cargo flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Hong Kong via Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The flight from Frankfurt to Riyadh was uneventful, and weather conditions at Riyadh were good, with sufficient visibility.
On arrival at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the plane landed heavily, bounced repeatedly, eventually breaking up and veering off the runway. Both the 39-year-old Captain and 29-year-old First Officer were able to evacuate the plane using the emergency slide, but were injured. After the crash, a fire consumed the midsection of the aircraft before it was brought under control by the airport emergency services.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The General Authority of Civil Aviation opened an investigation into the accident. The final report found that the cause of the accident was that the airplane touched down too hard, which caused it to bounce on the runway. The crew did not recognize the bounce and reacted in a way that made the plane bounce even harder. The third and final touchdown was so hard that it caused the aft fuselage to rupture.
Before this accident, there were 29 other bounced or severe hard landings with MD-11 aircraft that caused substantial damage. A similar accident had occurred on FedEx Express Flight 80 in the previous year, where both crew members were killed in a bounced landing.
It was known that flight crews found MD-11 bounced landings difficult to detect. The final report made several recommendations to improve training, procedures and flight instruments to help crews to deal with bounced landings.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Lufthansa Cargo Flight 8460” (revision 1348348342, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: Lufthansa Cargo Flight 8460
- Article
- Lufthansa Cargo Flight 8460
- Revision
- 1348348342 · 2026-04-12 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q1779841
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA10RA079
- Event ID
- 20100721X34052
- Case number
- DCA10RA079
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Lufthansa Cargo Flight 8460" (page 28167845, revision 1348348342); merged with NTSB case DCA10RA079 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA10RA079
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Lufthansa Cargo Flight 8460" and NTSB case DCA10RA079, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.