B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 200; Flight Crew Type 636
Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
General None Reported / Taken
Environment - Non Weather Related
I was flying the landing to 24R; Flaps 40 (in order to avoid published construction areas); approximately 10 miles in trail of Heavy A380 aircraft. Approach was normal and stable with some rolling type turbulence (possibly wake turbulence) below 500 feet. At about 40 feet as I was transitioning to the flare; a large rate of descent became evident. I added some power to arrest the rate of descent and touched down with throttles above idle (I assume); although I attempted to reset them at idle at touchdown. The first touchdown was controlled and well within limits; but then the aircraft bounced and became airborne; the nose pitching up excessively. At this point the power was at idle and my first concern was to hold an attitude to prevent a tailstrike. Setting the normal touchdown attitude resulted in a very hard landing after the bounce. We contact the flight crew to ask about injuries or other issues in the cabin. All stated they were fine with no damage apparent.We also contacted Maintenance via radio to advise of the hard landing and to have them meet the aircraft. The Maintenance Technician (MT) I spoke to said he would take a quick look at the tail before we made any logbook entry; I agreed. He reported no tail contact or other issues. I did not make a logbook entry.
B737 Captain reported a hard landing resulted when he encountered wake turbulence at low altitude in trail of an A380 on approach to LAX.