The strange landing of a Spanish EF-18M Hornet fighter at the Albacete Air Base

@DefAviation ES 11·25·2023 · 0:06 0

On some occasions, fighter jet pilots are forced to make landings in difficult conditions, for various reasons.

A splendid video of Spanish Eurofighters and EF-18 during the Ocean Sky 23 exercise
The characteristics of the helmets and flight equipment of the Spanish EF-18 fighter pilots

It seems that this is what has happened at the Los Llanos Air Base, in Albacete, during the Tactical Leadership Program (TLP) 23-4. The Fighter Community has published an excellent quality video (in 4K) in which We see an EF-18M Hornet fighter from the 12th Wing, on 12-06 (C.15-48), making an emergency landing at the aforementioned base, according to the aforementioned channel in the video:

"It is difficult to know if it was due to pilot or aircraft failure. The important thing is that both landed safely and soundly", The Fighter Community notes. We can see here some screenshots of the video that show us the sequence of events. In the first, the EF-18M approaches the runway with the typical approach angle:

At a very short distance from the runway, the pilot tilted his nose forward, an unsuitable maneuver for landing as he risks touching the runway first with the front landing gear, which is the least robust. It always lands touching the ground with the rear wheels first.

The plane touches the runway with its rear wheels. In this image we can see that this EF-18M had an AN/AAQ-28(V) LITENING target designator on the ventral support. It carried two external fuel tanks on the underwing supports.

After touching the ground with the rear wheels, the EF-18M bounces on the runway and rises again:

Finally, the plane descends again and lands normally:

Congratulations to the pilot for managing to control his fighter and being able to land it without further setbacks. Perhaps what we see was due to turbulence upon landing, the matter is not clear. Congratulations also to The Fighter Community for the excellent quality of this video.