Orval Fairbairn wrote in
news
In article ,
Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Marty Shapiro wrote in
:

D Ramapriya wrote in
news:706e02c1-4a48-4b69-91e9-
:

On Mar 4, 1:04 am, Jim Logajan wrote:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...538926,00.html

Scroll to the bottom for an editor's note: "An earlier version of
this story contained information from German wire service DPA
that listed the strength of storm winds near the airport at 250
kilometers-per-hour (155 miles per hour)."


Jim, it was the plane that was traveling @ 155 mph

Ramapriya


On the local CBS news tonight (Channel 5, San Francisco) they
stated the winds were 150 miles per hour.

They weren't. If they had been, the A320 would have climbed away
vetically. I was inthe area at the time, BTW, and it was blowing
about 50 in the gusts.


Bertie

It still raises a couple of questions:

1. Why did ATC direct them to a runway with such an excessive
crosswind?

2. Why did the Captain accept such a clearance?


Probably it was within limits.. I just got of the phone with an A320
friend of mine. Demonstrated x-wind as published by Airbus is 35 knots.
He reckons Lufty might have that shortened to 33.
If it's within limits you take it if you are comfortable.
The wind may have veered and or strengthened while he was on approach.
That's tkind of th enature of high wind. We try and keep an ear out for
the current wind as we're making the aproach.Also, we have several wind
displays on board. There'd be a wind arrow on the nav screen with
direction and strength, and a digital display breaking it down into head
and crosswind components, so the crew can see whan the wind is where
they are at any given moment. In short, they knew what the wind was on
the runway and it would have been within limits when they shot the
approach.



Bertie