LH459 - Incident: Lufthansa A388 at Munich on Aug 17th 2026

A Lufthansa Airbus A380-800, registration D-AIML performing flight LH-459 from San Francisco,CA (USA) to Munich (Germany) with 352 passengers and 24 crew, landed on Munich's runway 26L but touched down short of the runway threshold. The aircraft rolled out without further incident and taxied to the apron.

The airline reported the aircraft contacted at least one of the runway threshold lights causing damage to the treads of a number of tyres. The occurrence is being investigated by the BFU.

The aircraft is still on the ground in Munich about 20 hours after landing.

On Aug 28th 2026 the BFU reported the occurrence was rated a serious incident stating the aircraft had "contact with runway lights". An investigation has been opened.

On Oct 22nd 2026 the BFU released their preliminary report summarizing the sequence of events:

At the time, the First Officer was Pilot Flying (PF) and the Pilot in Command (PIC) the Pilot Monitoring (PM) and trainings captain. For the First Officer, this flight served as training flight for re-qualification after an interruption of about eight months. In the cockpit was a senior first officer as third pilot, who did not perform any flight-related duties during this phase of the flight.

According to their statements, the flight crew had discussed the corresponding ILS approach for a possible landing on runway 26R and the Required Navigation Performance (RNP) approach for a landing on runway 26L during their approach briefing.

According to NOTAM, an ILS approach to runway 26L was not possible. The RNP approach to runway 26L should occur with the FLS (FMS Landing System) “Guidance”.

At 15:03:12 UTC at about FL 180, the PIC requested from Munich Radar a heading of 110° or 115°, respectively, to fly around a bad-weather area in the vicinity of Munich Airport to the north, according to the air navigation service provider’s radio communications recording. One minute later, Munich Radar assigned a heading of 115°. According to the flight crew statement, the estimated cloud tops of the bad weather area were at about 13,000 ft AMSL. At 15:07:26 UTC, the airplane turned into the downwind leg after the instruction from Munich Radar and at 15:08:53 UTC, the flight crew received the clearance to descend 5,000 ft AMSL (QNH 1,015 hPa). At 15:10:17 UTC, the PIC contacted Munich Arrival and received the allocation for the RNP approach to runway 26L. For this approach, the minimum was 1,810 ft AMSL (340 AGL) and the required visibility 800 m.

According to the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), the last ATIS the flight crew considered was the one of 15:12 UTC. It included a visibility between 2,700 m and 7,000 m, the prevailing weather situation with thunderstorms and heavy rain and mist, cloudy skies of 3 to 4 octas with a lower limit of 1,600 ft AGL and 5 to 7 octas with a lower limit of 3,700 ft AGL, among other things. The runway condition was reported as “wet” and the touch-down zone as “slippery”. The flight crew decided to use maximum reverse thrust for the landing.

Until the landing, additional ATIS were published at 15:16 UTC and at 15:20 UTC. The one of 15:20 UTC included a minimum visibility of 1,200 m, among other things.

At 15:14 UTC, the airplane turned into the base leg for runway 26L and at 15:15:15 UTC, to a south-west heading, after the instruction from Munich Arrival. At the same time, the flight crew received the clearance for the RNP approach to runway 26L. According to the flight crew’s statement, in the downwind and the base legs runway 26R was visible, runway 26L, however, was hidden by clouds. According to the CVR recording, at 15:16:36 UTC the PIC mentioned to the First Officer the “Weather Ahead Message” of the weather radar which was indicated on the navigation display and warns of potential weather or turbulence hazards. At 15:18:20 UTC, at about 5,000 ft AMSL, the airplane began to descent on the virtual FLS Beam of the RNP approach of runway 26L.

According to the flight crew’s statement, the on-board weather radar showed only areas of light or moderate precipitation (green and yellow areas) in the final approach area of runway 26L.

After the airplane was fully configured for landing at about 2,300 ft AGL (3,800 ft AMSL) with flaps position 3 and extended landing gear, the First Officer disconnected Autothrust. At the time, autopilot AP2 and the Flight Directors (FD) were engaged and were in F-G/S (FLS Glideslope) and F-LOC (FLS Localizer) mode. Autobrake was armed in position Brake To Vacate (BTV) to vacate the runway via taxiway B4.

According to the flight crew, at about 1,200 ft AGL heavy rain began, visibility deteriorated and the use of the wind shield wipers did not significantly improve it. At 15:21:54 UTC, at about 800 ft AGL, the flight crew received the landing clearance from Munich Tower together with the information of the prevailing wind from 310° with 24 kt, minimum 9 kt and maximum 36 kt.

According to the flight crew, at about 100 ft above the minimum they could see the approach lighting of runway 26L. The First Officer continued the approach and shortly afterwards he disengaged the autopilot and then flew manually. At the time, the flight crew estimated visibility to be 500 m or less.

According to the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) recording, the FD Pitch Order was between 300 ft AGL and 160 ft AGL at about 1°. The centre of the „Fixed Aircraft Symbol“ was correspondingly below the FD Pitch Bar. At this time, the F-G/S deviation increased to 0,7 Dot below (– 0,7 Dot). From 160 ft AGL on up until close to the ground FD Pitch Order was +/−0.5°. The F-G/S deviation increased further and at about 80 ft AGL it was 2 Dots below (-2 Dots) and then reached a “full scale deflection”.

At about 100 ft AGL, the flight crew could see the runway, according to their statements. At 30 ft AGL, the PIC realised that they were too low and informed the First Officer accordingly, according to the CVR recording. Two seconds later (at 15:23:06 UTC) the airplane touched down with a vertical acceleration of 2.1 g, according to the FDR recording. The touch-down point of the main landing gear by the Body Landing Gears was 18.8 m before the threshold of runway 26L on a paved surface. The Precision Approach Path Indicators (PAPI) were never visible during the entire approach, according to the flight crew’s statement.

After touch-down, the First Officer set maximum reverse thrust. During roll out on the runway below 70 kt, he handed controls over to the PIC and informed Munich Tower about the low visibility below the minimum. The airplane left runway 26L via taxiway B6.

Ground control informed the flight crew that ground handling services had been suspended due to thunderstorms and instructed them to stop the airplane on taxiway B6 ahead of taxiway T. From that point on, it took 51 minutes to reach the final parking position 317 on Apron 3.

Immediately after the landing, a new ATIS (15:23 UTC) with a new QNH of 1,014 hPa was published. The flight crew noted the change in QNH.

According to their statements, the flight crew listened in addition to the ground frequency and later to the apron frequency, also on another radio to the Tower frequency. As they listened, they learned that lights in the area of the runway threshold 26L had been damaged. Runway 26L was temporarily closed for inspection and cleaning work. After the airplane had been parked at the parking position, the senior first officer saw the damage on some of the main landing gear tires and reported it to the other pilots. Then the flight crew realised that the landing had occurred ahead of the runway threshold.

Related Flight: LH459, Lufthansa News