Even hard landings are still pretty safe in modern planes [VIDEO]


For those of you who think you’re gonna die when a plane lands too hard, I’ve got good news. With modern materials and decades of engineering tweaking, even landings hard enough to reorganize your spinal column aren’t going to end in disaster.

The video above is making the rounds today, showing both the landing gear and the wings absorbing a beating during a hard landing and looking none the worse for wear.

This reassuring footage was well timed, being that just three days ago I audibly gasped while watching the video below of a hard landing in cross winds in Bilbao, where the plane drops the last 30-40 feet like a rock. The pilot throttles up and, apart from some soiled underwear, everything is fine.

His second, softer pass, where a wingtip nearly touches the ground, is arguably more frightening.