A Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 arriving from Frankfurt gave spotters at Los Angeles International Airport a moment they won't forget, touching down on runway 24R and then hauling straight back into the air — with the tail coming within feet of scraping the tarmac.
The incident, captured by Airline Videos Live, unfolded on Saturday, October 10 at LAX. The jumbo jet, registered D-ABYK, had been cleared to land on runway 24R, the airport's northernmost and shortest runway at 8,926 feet. That's normally plenty for a 747, but it doesn't leave much margin for a sloppy approach — and this one was coming in a touch fast. The aircraft floated, then set down roughly a third of the way along the runway with just under 6,000 feet remaining.
Deciding that wasn't enough room to stop comfortably — likely out of concern for stopping distance or brake overheating — the pilots aborted and pulled up sharply. The nose-up attitude was aggressive enough that the tail came dangerously close to a tail strike, possibly within just a few feet. The plane circled and landed without incident about 15 minutes later, on the same runway.
Here's the reassuring part: even a visible near-tail-strike doesn't mean passengers were ever in real danger. Aircraft are built to tolerate tail strikes that range from trivial to serious. A minor one might only require an inspection and a repaint before the plane returns to service. A severe one, though, can cause structural damage that keeps an aircraft parked for months — as Air France discovered when an Airbus A350 suffered a hard tail strike during a go-around in Toronto in early 2024 and spent around six months on the ground.
No one was hurt in the Lufthansa episode, and the only real consequence is a very watchable video. For nervous flyers, it's also a useful reminder of how go-arounds work: they're routine, pilots are trained to choose caution over saving a landing, and abandoning an approach at the last second is exactly what a well-trained crew is supposed to do. The slightly dramatic tail clearance was a byproduct of a fast decision, not a sign the aircraft was out of control.
If you're the type who films planes at the airport fence, LAX is one of the best places on earth to do it — and this clip shows why. For everyone else, it's a low-stakes slice of aviation life: a big jumbo, a short runway by 747 standards, a crew that decided the maths wasn't in their favour, and a second attempt that went off without a hitch.
Story via One Mile at a Time.
