Investigation Summary
The flight was the first time the 39-year-old Captain and 29-year-old First Officer had flown together. The Captain assigned the landing to the First Officer, who had only seven months of experience with the airline and had never flown into Riyadh. During the approach to runway 33L, the aircraft dipped below the glide slope 25 seconds before touchdown while ground speed increased to 176 knots. The First Officer initiated the flare late, approximately 23 to 31 feet above the runway, resulting in an initial hard touchdown at -780 feet per minute. The aircraft bounced, and the Captain, acting as Pilot Monitoring, pushed the control column forward without announcing he was taking control. This led to dual, conflicting inputs. The second touchdown occurred in a flat pitch attitude at 3.0g, causing the nose gear to rebound and the spoilers to fully extend. A final, severe impact at -1,020 feet per minute caused the fuselage to break behind the wing trailing edge, severing fuel lines. Despite the structural failure, the Captain maintained enough control to keep the aircraft near the runway until the nose gear collapsed during the slide into the dirt.
Final Conclusions
The Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) concluded the accident was caused by the crew's failure to recognize the initial high sink rate and the subsequent bounce. The investigation highlighted that the Captain made inappropriate, large nose-down inputs during the first bounce and that both pilots acted simultaneously on the controls without proper coordination. The company's bounced-landing recovery procedure was not applied. The report noted that the MD-11 was susceptible to such events, citing 29 previous instances of substantial damage from bounced or hard landings.
Video Analysis
The Last Push | Lufthansa Cargo Flight 8460 — A detailed look at the 2010 crash of Lufthansa Cargo Flight 8460 in Riyadh, examining the pilot inputs and the MD-11's history of bounced landing accidents.
If playback is blocked, the owner has disabled embedding — use the link above.
Airframe & Maintenance
Systems & Failure Modes
Ground Spoilers
The spoilers deployed to 30 degrees after the first touchdown and reached full extension (60 degrees) after the second touchdown, which contributed to the loss of lift during the bounces.
Thrust Reversers
Following the fuselage rupture, only engines 1 and 3 responded to the Captain's command for reverse thrust.
Interesting Facts
- 01The aircraft was carrying 80 tons of cargo at the time of the accident.
- 02The final impact recorded a vertical descent rate of 1,020 feet per minute.
- 03The Captain and First Officer were the only occupants and both survived the crash and subsequent fire.
- 04The MD-11 involved had accumulated 73,247 airframe hours and 10,073 cycles.
- 05The aircraft was originally delivered to Alitalia as a passenger jet in 1993 before being converted to a freighter in 2004.
Safety Actions & Advisories
Training and Instrumentation Improvements
The final report recommended improvements to training, procedures, and flight instruments to assist MD-11 crews in detecting and recovering from bounced landings.