Worst Weather Conditions you landed in?

Question

Raining? Snowing? Low Ceilings? Windshear alerts? Wet runways? Lightning? Dark nights? All of the above (brrr...). How did you manage to tackle such conditions?

Answer 1

Surface wind 240 degrees 70 knots (landing runway 24)

This was back around 1991 when I was a F/O (the captain wouldn't let me fly the landing and insisted on doing it himself!)

Answer 2

I dont know.. its a toss up, Flying into Brantford Ont with whiteout Snow conditions which almost made me have to abort the landing....   How I handled:  Made a go around on the first attempt, the now got heavier however since I was flying VFR at the time and already in the airport pattern they allowed me to stay even though they went IMC on me.  I cranked up the ILS for the runway I was assigned, and made a special VFR approach visual + ILS found a gap in the snow on approach touched down and exited the runway.. again on the taxi into the terminal i got whited out again, had to pause for a few on the taxiway!!!  what a day!

Of course there was the time I landed on a narrow short field in very high crosswind conditions.. think i smoked the brakes on that one!  Flying a cessna 150, Landing at Almont (37G) was making an approach in heavy winds gusting i dont remember exactly how fast, but they were about 80 deg off angle and WELL OVER the max demonstrated crosswind component of the aircraft..

How I handled: i kept the power in there on approach because of the gusting conditions, crabbed on final till i was close enough, then i cranked her into a side slip, when i touched i cranked left aileron into the wind to keep that wing down and kept her on one wheel till the the airspeed bled off and the right wheel touched the pavement.  Hit the brakes HARD to avoid going off the end of the runway (into the mud)!

Answer 3

October 28th 1989 @ 0345 local: Mix Rain / Snow / Sleet, winds 55 knots, ceiling of 1000 ft, visibility 500-1000ft, AND in EMCON (controlled emissions - NO RADIO) somewhere off the Soviet coast in the Northern Pacific.

We were landing on the USS Reuben James in our SH-60B Seahawk... we had the added fun of a sea-state of 5 (waves 15-24 ft)... though the ship DID turn into the wind, so we had THAT going for us !!  The landing-area though is only 70'x45' and bucking up and down like a cheerleader on prom-night.

We'd had to perform a HIFR (Helicopter In-Flight Refueling) at midnight... because the weather had been WORSE... to extend our flight-time until the lovely conditions at 0345

We shot 4 approaches before we could get into a stable hover over the deck and finally deploy and capture the "RAST" (Recovery Assist, Secure, Transit) cable and be whinched down to the deck, chocked and chained.  I kissed the flight deck while the deckcrew folded up the safety nets !!

After we folded the helicopter blades and had pushed the bird into the hangar, myself and another crewman were caught by a rogue wave coming up the stern... we both "body-surfed" the 70 feet from the stern to the hangar.

Answer 4

It wasn't the worst weather conditions I had ever seen, but due to wind factor, it was a scary landing. I was occupying the jump seat in the cockpit, and watched as the crew shot a textbook NDB approach, and when they broke out at 500 feet, they were lined up perfectly with the runway. The active runway had a head wind of 25 knots with constant gusts up to 35-40 knots. The crew increased the approach and landing speeds to compensate for the high headwinds. Everything was fine, until the aircraft was over the threshold.....then the wind just died....completely. The aircraft was suddenly  too hot due to the higher landing speed, gained lift, and shot down the runway like a rocket....the aircraft was about 1/2 way down the runway before the wheels touched....suddenly we were running out of runway..the captain powered up the aircraft, got airborne and went around for another approach, and a short while later we were on the ground without any further excitement.

Answer 5

Zero, Zero and severe icing. That's why I landed. I was in a Bell 206 Jet Ranger

The light twin behind me landed with full power and was sinking on final.

Somewhere in Canada years and years ago

Answer 6

Flying to Caldwell, Idaho. On my descent I lost oil pressure in my right engine of my Queen air, as a result the engine failed, I shut down the engine completely and trimmed the yaw to make it easier to fly, I declared my emergency and when I got closer and closer to landing snow was terrible and it was a whiteout condition then I got a wind-shear warning and my plane was getting thrown around like a toy. I increased throttle a tiny bit to get control and lowered the gear and flaps and touch-downed, I slowly applied the brakes to avoid skidding and came to a stop. The hardest part was finding the taxi way.

Answer 7

Fog.  I am one of those taking the LONGEST possible air plane trip in the shortest amount of time.  Total travel time: 24 hours, time on the planes: 18 hours, connections: 2.  Hopping from near New York city for a stop in near the great lakes then to Kyto, Japan and then to Taipei, Taiwan (more than half of the earth's circumference, literally the other side of the world).  

Once, the condition at Taipei was foggy (was still foggy when the plane made the delay trip), we were told that the plane would try to leave next morning.  Yet, instead of taking us to hotels and some lodging, we were told to sleep in the cold Kyoto airport (which is closed at night) not because of lack of funds, but a bus driver can not be located to drive us to the hotel (the stupidest thing I ever heard, I would drive the stinking bus for crying out loud).

Kinda had something to do with landing but not quite.

XR

Answer 8

Worst I ever landed was in freezing fog.  The GPS was showing four tenths to, and I still didn't have the airport.  Didn't pick up the environment until I was over the touchdown marks and at twenty feet.  Of course, I was Special VFR in a helicopter, so no big deal, really.  Didn't even pick up that much ice.

Answer 9

The hairiest landing was the one in Athens when a huge black scorpion crawled out of the console somewhere and started crawling up my arm on 2-miles final.  The First Officer reached over and snapped a heavy book shut on it, took it and squeezed it until gunk squirted out and we could assume it was probably dead.

I said, "Thanks."  What else can you say?

(We believe that some person of ill will put it there on purpose in Nigeria.)

Worst weather landing was at Pittsburgh, PA in 1975:  Snow and wind shear, 1/2 mile and 300 ft.  Impossible to make a smooth landing, so we let it bounce a little.  The airplane right behind us was damaged by a tornado after landing.  So they closed the airport for a while.

Never liked that airport, anyway.

Answer 10

2 mile vis, 300 foot ceiling and 30 kt quartering crosswind of the right of the nose.....

bouncing, bumping, can't see anthing and the glideslope/localizer wandering like a scenthound with a head cold......almost aborted but at the time i went to go for the throttles and gear handle, the runway popped out of the clouds in front of me....but still a rollercoaster ride for the last 300 feet down and chattered the tires as i found out i didn't have quite enough correction in the when the wheels hit the pavement.

by comparison, 1/2 mile vis, 200 foot ceiling and snow with no wind was a walk in the park

worst single weather incident was a lightning strike in a cessna 172..... nothing like being blinded, deaf and have all the electronics go out, wondering what just happened.....lol.....

Answer 11

My answer is not as thrilling as some of the others have experienced, but I'll throw it in anyway.

It was probably landing at San Carlos, CA (KSQL) in a pretty solid crosswind. Unfortunately, it was a trip in which I had my wife (semi-white knuckle flyer) along. We had originally planned on going to Half Moon Bay but had to divert to SQL because the ceilings at HAF were well below minimums. SQL is a pretty short runway (2600') which is OK as long as you plan your approach carefully. We were landing on 30 and wind was 250 @ 14 gusting to 21. Flying a 172, not a real problem, but on short final, I got behind some buildings on the south end of the runway which shaded the wind and changed the whole approach at the last second. I had to power up, climb quickly, and then do a real short, steep approach on very short final. I think it was my wife's scream and not the stall horn that I heard but I'm still not sure. Anyway, bit of a hard landing wherein she managed to hook her purse under her door handle and pop the latch loose causing her door to pop open on landing. At least it gives her something to talk about today as a "veteran flyer."

Answer 12

Landing in near whiteout condition with 1/2 sm flight visibility, with snow falling and a tailwind.  Snow covering the runway markings.  Because of the tailwind the snow packed on the runway edge lights and the distance remaing signs.