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It is a bit of a bizarre phenomenon, but certainly fairly common in some parts of the world.
I was almost able to forgive it on an internal flight in Russia where the pilot did his 'ladies and gentleman, we'll shortly be landing...' speech, after which nothing actually happened for another 40 minutes. No flight or cabin crew said anything thing until (in English) "This is the captain. Brace for impact!" followed by the cabin crew going into a full rendition of "Brace for impact; get down, stay down!" alternating in Russian and English. Once we had (successfully) landed and everything seemed to be OK (and people had un-braced themselves) there was a round of applause. Seems the wheels down/locked indicator hadn't come on in the cockpit so the pilot wasn't quite sure what was going to happen... The clues were there as to what was happening (as we circled, did a couple of low passes of the airfield etc), but clearly the crew had decided it was better to keep people guessing!
Great stories folks.
I fly in/out of London city (Docklands) on average 4 times a month, if you’ve ever been there it looks quite small, deceptively so.. and Albert Dock is on your right ...
Anyway, it’s no surprise when tacking off that you get the impression that the pilots climb trajectory isn’t quite high enough as you head for Barclays Bank.
And visaversa I have seen some planes fly very low indeed over Barclays whilst sitting at my desk on the 24th floor...
It seems a strange irony that the people who clap a safe landing tend to be from cultures with the strongest beliefs that there is a better place waiting for them when the plane does plough into the ground at 500 miles an hour.
That's because despite their competitive piety, even strongly superstitious people still can't quite trust their God to deliver them safely.
If you chose a random flight anywhere in the world every day it would be hundreds of thousands of years before you would be involved in an accident…
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Probably</span>. but not definitely.
I remember this in the 1970's.
I've also flown into Gibraltar.
Because of the political situation the plane needs to make a weird approach and then come in really steeply. Gib also has a very short runway so the brakes get yanked on very quickly and very hard.
A safe landing there always gets a round of applause.
My workmate did a similar trip and the plane was carrying too much speed as it hit the runway and had to pull up again or go off the end of the runway.
it circled and approached again and the same thing happened, too fast and then pull up again.
It was circling for a third attempt and my mate was pretty nervous by this stage. He clapped when the pilot announced they were diverting to the Spanish airport along the coast even if it di add a couple of hours onto his trip.
Don’t the planes just fly down a beam transmitted from the runway and could more or less land themselves in calm conditions? It’s only when the wind makes it tricky then the pilots get to show off their skills?
don’t think I have ever witnessed clapping but after a tricky landing well executed have seen the captain come out of the cabin and stand there beaming as passengers get of the plane, I gave him an appreciative nod.
I'm also just re-reading 'Nam which gives first hand accounts of the Vietnam war.
Apparently as one 19 year old approached Nam for the first time on a commercial airliner circa 1968 the pilot announced "welcome to Vietnam, the outside temperature is 98 degrees and ground fire is light to moderate'.
In the early 80's we went to Madeira , the pilot got a standing ovation. 🙂
Witnessed this a few times on flights with a large contingent of East Europeans.
Never joined in myself but after a particularly interesting landing into BHX after two aborted attempts in the middle of a blizzard , I did make a point of shaking the pilots hand as I disembarked.
I heard a story about a 'plane that made an absolutely perfect landing at Heathrow. The person who told the story said there were two Boeing engineers in the seats behind who commented on the quality of the pilot: "This guy really knows how to fly the thing!" and then bang on cue the pilot came on the tannoy to announce that it had been the first ever landing using the new automatic landing equipment. Folklore says it is so accurate that in snow, successive aircraft of the same type only leave one set of tyre tracks.
Flying into an airstrip in the Philipines, quite literally a cleared mud pathway in the jungle, El Nido, if you care to knnow.
first pass along the runway at about 20ft without touchdown, pilots leans around the cabin door, “it’s OK now, water buffalo scared off the runway!”
A flight to remember that was.
Don’t the planes just fly down a beam transmitted from the runway and could more or less land themselves in calm conditions?
Only big modern airports have it afaik.
Landed at Lukla. I would have clapped except my hands were still gripping the seat.
Most airlines now allow or even require pilots to land manually. Finals are still done on auto which ensures the plane is correctly set up on the glideslope and at the right speed, but the system is switched into standby after the GO/NOGO decision point, and the plane is flown to touchdown manually. This is done to "keep the pilots eye in" as it has been found that too much reliance on automation actually hinders the pilots abilities in an emergency.
(pilots also report hating the autotouchdown because it lands bang on the middle of the r/w and the nosewheel therefore bumps over the centreline paint strips and lights which shakes the cockpit annoyingly!)
I had a late go-around 2 weeks ago flying into Split, Croatia, where a local thunderstorm reduced visibility to below VFR just before GO/NOGO, so the pilot choose to abort, go around and line up again. Second time round, we landed neatly on a very wet runway (lots of spray from the reversers and a bit of AntiSkid could be felt trimming the main gear brakes but not very dramatic really) and passengers clapped, despite really nothing actually happening other than the pilot needing to fly around in a circle to restablish then aircraft into the finals........
If you fly in to or out of an airport that has vendors offering to cling wrap your luggage you are likely to experience clapping on landing.
BTW, these vids are quite interesting, showing a modern heavy taking off and landing
Take off
Landing:
there was zero accidents or deaths in commercial passenger Jet aviation….you simply can’t get any safer than that
Errr yes you can.
For every crash there will have been ~10 Ohhh *** * **** f%^*$£ moments.
For every one of those ~10 ohhh **** shouldn't have done that's
For every one of those ~10 oop's
For every one of those ~10 mistakes that weren't even noticed.
For every one of those ~10 times something was done that had the potential to go wrong (two buttons next to each other and you always press the right one).
Good H&S isn't stopping once you've stopped killing people, it's working away at the things that cause accidents. Because one day one of the little things will escalate badly. The aim is to eliminate the thousands of minor events at the bottom of the pyramid, that way you know you've eliminated some of each tier above it.
Pah’ Airplanes-I just use my time machine
I used to live in Wellington, NZ and that was always an exciting landing, i did it 4 times a week...can;t remember people clapping but have had some bum clenching moments for sure.
Not true…whichever way you cut the stats flying if orders of magnitudes safer than driving.
I'm pretty certain if you take the per meter for the last meter then landing is way ahead.
If you take the last meter driving vs last meter flying then there are probably way more bumps parking but these are unlikely to be fatal...
Just take a look at the state of those clapping around you before you before deciding to join in. One word, Brighthouse.
Don’t the planes just fly down a beam transmitted from the runway and could more or less land themselves in calm conditions?
I think you're thinking about the Death Star tractor beam.
I always thought it was a German thing.
Don’t the planes just fly down a beam transmitted from the runway
