That means the engine mount would absorb the initial damage in a hard landing, but it could also damage the firewall and engine mount if the impact were hard enough.
Many service manuals I have reviewed have a section dedicated to evaluating hard landing damage.
According to feedback from several shops during my research and from my own experience, the aircraft may be damaged beyond economical repair in a hard landing and have no outward appearance or symptoms of major damage.
An AI spokesperson said the matter with regard to
hard landings was pending before the court of inquiry.
Among the incidents were Air India Express and Spice Jet aircraft overshooting the runway in Mangaluru and Surat airports respectively on June 30, a tail tip incident of an aircraft of Air India Express at Kozhikode airport, SpiceJet aircraft overshooting the runway in Mumbai airport and a SpiceJet aircraft's
hard landing in Kolkata airport on July 1.
Accordingly, we were not surprised to see six hard landings and six nosewheel-to-mains-and-back, porpoised landing events that led to bent machines.
ACCIDENT SUMMARY OTHER (21%) RLOC (20%) ENGINE/MECH (18%) FUEL-RELATED (11%) PORPOISED ON LDG (6%) HARD LANDING (6%) OVERSHOT LANDING (5%) STALL (5%) VFR INTO IMC (4%) WATER LDG MISCUE (4%) Note: Table made from bar graph.
The issue of the TIA marks the beginning of expanded certification testing for the 747 programme which tests the extremes of flight, such as hot and cold weather, takeoffs and landings at high altitude airports, over-speed conditions,
hard landings and engine-out conditions.
LOOSE, PRAYING OR UNRAVELING CORDS CAN CAUSE SOME VERY
HARD LANDINGS.