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If you have ever flown into ORD, you know it can be an interesting experience, especially if something goes wrong.

Well, last night we were in CVG waiting out our “flow time” to ORD. To set the stage, we had 7 passengers on board, only about 150 lbs of bags, and not much fuel. This makes the CRJ700 very difficult to land well. It lands a lot better when you are heavy. When you are light…it makes it just a little more difficult.  Anyway…we made a little money while sitting on the taxiway getting ready to go. ORD was having some weather, so we had to wait.

Anyway, most the flight was uneventful. It seems to be the last five minutes that is always the most exciting.

We were being vectored to runway 27L in KORD. The controller gave us a turn to heading 290 degrees to intercept the localizer. I started to read it back but my FO said that the instruction wasn’t for us. So we continued on our present heading. Unfortunately that took us through the localizer. The controller gave us a turn to re-intercept and all was good. On short final we got a message that our GLD were now unsafe which is normally related to the radar altimeter going bad. The GLD deploy upon landing and ruin the lift of the airplane which helps it land. Well short final, I am not going missed. We had plenty of runway and our thrust reversers were working so we were going to land. The only other issue was that we had almost a direct crosswind from the left. My FO didn’t have a chance! We were light, our GLDs weren’t going to deploy, and we had a crosswind. The approach was near perfect; on speed and on glidepath. Once we touched down though, we bounced right back up in the air. We settled down and upon landing, albeit a little hard, made the first high speed exit. The FO wasn’t happy but he got over it. It was a good landing all things considered.

The lesson learned? Never underestimate the airplane, fly it till it stops, and be ready for the unexpected. All this happened in the last five minutes of the flight.

To Your Flying Success….

Jeffrey

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