FlightFollowerHit by a Missile. No Hydraulics. Only Throttle. DHL A300 Pilots Pull Off Landing! (2003)
On November 22, 2003, DHL Airbus A300B4-203 freighter OO-DLL departed Baghdad International Airport for Bahrain. At about 8,000 feet, a surface-to-air missile struck the aircraft’s left wing. The missile damaged the wing and destroyed the aircraft’s hydraulic systems.
With the normal flight controls unavailable, the crew had to find another way to control the aircraft. The remaining practical means was engine thrust. By changing thrust between the engines, the pilots could influence the aircraft’s flight path even though they no longer had normal hydraulic control.
The damaged aircraft returned toward Baghdad. The approach was difficult because the crew had to manage the aircraft’s attitude and direction through thrust changes rather than conventional control-surface inputs. The aircraft landed hard, departed the runway and continued into the sand and a fence.
All three crew members survived without injury. The aircraft was substantially damaged and was later written off. Airbus safety material describes the event as a remarkable example of a crew using engine thrust after the loss of all hydraulic systems.
The incident is unusual because the missile strike did not immediately make the aircraft uncontrollable in the ordinary sense. Instead, it removed the systems the crew normally depended on to manoeuvre. The crew then adapted the aircraft’s remaining controllability to reach the runway.
The event has since become a widely studied example of crew coordination and aircraft handling after catastrophic flight-control-system damage. The successful landing did not mean the aircraft was undamaged; it meant the crew retained enough control to bring a severely compromised aircraft back to the airport.
Accident Facts
- Date
- November 22, 2003
- Aircraft
- Airbus A300B4-203
- Registration
- OO-DLL
- Location
- Baghdad International Airport, Iraq
- Category
- Emergency, Fuel
Recorded line: “only engine thrust”
Sources
Aviation Week — https://aviationweek.com/dhleat-crew-lands-a300-no-hydraulics-after-being-hit-missile
ISASI/Airbus — https://asasi.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Malinge_Airbus-Bagdhad_ISASI04.pdf
Government of Canada PS752 report — https://international.canada.ca/fr/affaires-mondiales/organisation/rapports/vol-ps752/rapport-2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1VMivK0oZE