Live streamer captures the moments a jumbo jet aborts landing at LAX Airport
For the last three years, Kevin Ray has streamed hundreds of planes taking off and landing for his nearly 800,000 YouTube subscribers.
Not much can shock him.
"Whoa! Whoa! We're getting a go-around. Holy moly," Ray said on Tuesday afternoon.
Ray was at LAX Airport when he witnessed a Lufthansa Airline Boeing 747-8, which can carry up to 400 passengers and crew, attempt to land. It hit the runway hard and then bounced forward before the pilot rejected the landing and booked it back into the air.
"Almost looked like it was gonna hit in the front part and when see that kind of stuff that is concerning," he said. "That is the roughest landing I think we ever caught on our broadcast."
While it may have looked rough and dramatic, two aviation experts said it wasn't dangerous.
"It was terrible landing a real clunker but there's nothing dangerous about it because those airplanes are built to take it," retired pilot Barry Schiff said.
Captain Laura Einsetler flies similar wide-body planes in and out of LAX.
"It's possible it was a higher, faster approach into the airport, and we can't tell just how far into the runway they were touching down, so it could have been a contributing factor," she said.
Einsetler explained that a landing rejection and go-around are some of the many skills pilots are ready to use at each touch down.
"Once in a while you see a non-routine operation like a difficult landing," Schiff said. "The pilot salvaged and there are procedures for doing just that.
The flight eventually made a smooth landing in the end, but the initial rejection left an impression on Ray.
"I'll probably never see something like that every again, which is good," he said.
