Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Ground Strike - Aircraft; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
General None Reported / Taken
Procedure; Weather
The conditions were at night in VMC with winds about 20-40 degrees right at about 10-15 kts. Prevailing conditions earlier during the day were generally windy at 10 knots gusting to 20 knots. During the FO (First Officer) landing flare the right wing dropped at an abrupt rate which caused the Captain's hands to come up and quickly level out the yoke. The Captain only touched the yoke for less than 1 second and the plane recovered to wings level attitude for a slightly long landing. The Captain never took control of the aircraft away from the FO. It appeared that the aircraft had been in no more than 3-4 degrees of right bank for less than 1-2 seconds and the remainder of the landing was slightly long but uneventful. We continued taxi to the assigned gate and finished our debrief and post- flight inspection with no damage discovered at that time. Damage to the right wingtip was discovered 3 days later by another crew at another location. This event may have been caused by such a slight wingtip scrape that it did not seem that the wingtip ever touched the runway during the landing flare. Neither pilot felt like we had scraped a wingtip and therefore did not bring up the possibility that we might need to inspect the wingtip for any specific damage during that specific trip leg. A routine visual post flight inspection was accomplished with a flashlight at night. The landing crosswinds were well within the range for FO 15 knot crosswind limitations. If we were the crew that caused the damage; it was not discovered by any other crews for 3 full days of flying. There were also 3 days' worth of other crews that may have caused the damage that was not noticed. Also add emphasis of rudder control during landing and flare to minimize and balance the amount of Aileron usage during crosswind landing. The rudder was never mentioned during any of my training in new hire or upgrade; and the rudder may not be used enough by pilots company-wide to maintain centerline during crosswind landings; perhaps leading to a higher rate of wingtip strikes.
It was brought to my attention that the aircraft flown 4 days ago was discovered by a crew to have a wing strike. Plenty of crews flew it after us; and I do not believe that our flight caused the wing strike. That being said; we did have a landing that had a little too much aileron in the crosswind correction during the float before touchdown. Our right wing dropped slightly; and the other pilot grabbed the yoke to stop it from going any further. We debriefed after the flight about our landing and crosswind corrections but neither one of us thought that a wing strike could have occurred from the crosswind; at the time we didn't even mention it as a possibility.
Multiple CRJ-200 flight crews reported that minor damage on the right wing tip from a crosswind landing went unnoticed for several flights.