Lufthansa Flight 2904

Lufthansa Flight 2904 was an Airbus A320 flying from Frankfurt, Germany to Warsaw, Poland that overran the runway at Okęcie International Airport on 14 September 1993.

Incident description

Lufthansa Flight 2904 was cleared to land at Okęcie International Airport Runway 11 and was informed of the existence of wind shear on the approach. To compensate for the crosswind, the pilots attempted to touch down with the aircraft banked slightly to the right and with a speed of about 20 kn faster than usual. According to the manual, this was the correct procedure for the reported weather conditions, but the weather report was not up-to-date. At the moment of touchdown, the assumed crosswind turned out to be a tailwind of approximately 20 kn. With the resulting increased speed, the airplane hit the ground at approximately 170 kn and far beyond the normal touchdown point; its right gear touched down 770 m from the runway threshold. The left gear touched down nine seconds later, 1525 m from the threshold. Only when the left gear touched the runway did the ground spoilers and engine thrust reversers start to deploy, these systems depend on oleo strut (shock absorber) compression. The wheel brakes, triggered by wheel rotation being equal to or greater than 72 kn, began to operate about four seconds later.

The remaining length of the runway (left from the moment when braking systems had begun to work) was too short to enable the aircraft to stop. Seeing the approaching end of the runway and the obstacle behind it, the pilot steered the aircraft off the runway to the right. The aircraft departed the runway at a speed of 72 kn and rolled 90 m before it hit the embankment and an localizer with the left wing. A fire started in the left wing area and penetrated into the passenger cabin. Two of 70 occupants died, the training captain (seated in the right seat) who died on impact and one passenger who was unable to escape because he lost consciousness from the smoke in the cabin.