A321 accident in Antalya

The A321 accident in Antalya was an aviation accident that occurred on 10 January 2020. An Airbus A321-231 airliner of Nordwind Airlines was operating a ferry flight without passengers on the Moscow—Antalya route, but during the approach at the destination airport it made a hard landing and bounced off the runway surface. The crew went around, after which it made an emergency landing with a damaged nose landing gear. None of the 2 pilots and 5 cabin crew members on board were injured.

Chronology of events

At 01:46 flight N4 1801 took off from Sheremetyevo Airport and set course for Antalya. The flight was at flight level FL360. At 01:50 and at 03:20 the crew received weather reports for Antalya airport and the alternate airport in Ankara.

During the descent the commander conducted the approach briefing and specified the options of an ILS approach to runway No. 36C or No. 36R. Other options were not considered. At 07:15 local time the crew began descending to flight level FL170.

During the descent the aircraft was above the established profile due to a strong tailwind, and the commander decided to deploy the spoilers and extend the flaps to position 2. The rest of the approach was flown manually.

At 07:36, at a height of 450 metres, the aircraft intercepted the landing course. At 07:36.50 the landing gear was extended, and the flaps were fully extended. At 07:37 the crew received clearance to land on runway No. 36C. At 07:39.39 the airspeed began to decrease, and the aircraft itself was slightly above the glide path, and 3 seconds later the aircraft entered it.

At 07:39:44 the aircraft flew over the runway threshold at a height of 10 metres. One second later, at a height of 20 metres, the thrust levers were retarded to the "idle" position. Almost simultaneously with this, the commander pushed the sidestick fully forward; immediately after this the thrust levers were moved to the "TO/GA" setting.

At 07:39.47 the aircraft made a hard landing with a nose-down pitch attitude of −3.9°. The g-load was 2.64 g. At 07:39.49 it bounced off the runway and the commander initiated a go-around. During the first 2—3 seconds of the go-around, dual input was recorded. After the go-around the flaps were set to position 3, and the landing gear was not retracted, since the landing gear lever had jammed.

At a height of 280 metres a smoke warning for the avionics bay sounded in the cockpit. The pilots put on oxygen masks and declared Mayday. At a height of 1 kilometre the inertial system failed. The commander took control and began a visual approach.

Since the status of the landing gear still remained unknown to the crew, the pilots decided to make a pass over the runway so that the landing gear could be seen from the ground. During the pass, warnings of low fluid quantity and low pressure in one of the hydraulic systems lit up in the cockpit. Afterwards an overheat warning lit up in another hydraulic system, which was switched off by the co-pilot at 07:54.29. At 07:49.34 the crew extended the flaps to position 4. The slats extended normally to 27°, but the flaps extended to position 4 only after almost 5 minutes.

The ACARS system received 103 messages about failures of various systems. After it was confirmed from the ground that the landing gear was extended, the crew made a successful landing at Antalya airport, during which both pilots were uninjured.