Regional Jet 900 (CRJ900)
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Training / Qualification
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; No Specific Anomaly Occurred Unwanted Situation
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors
Original First Officer (FO) called out from the trip. I was assigned a new FO; he informed me that he was low time FO and hasn't flown much during the past few weeks. I took the first leg to ZZZ1; and I let him [have] the leg back from ZZZ1 to ZZZ. He flew really well during the entire flight. We were cleared for the visual approach Runway XXL with great weather. FO did a great job during the approach and he was properly configured and stable at all times. It looked like he was going to have a great landing because he was doing everything by the book. Unfortunately; when it came time to do the flare he barely flared and took the power out a bit too quickly and the main landing gears made contact with the runway firmer than normal. Everything happened too quick; I saw him initially starting to flare but then at the end he let the nose drop a bit and the mains contacted the runway. I didn't get a chance to note the VSI at the time. As soon as we arrived at the gate I called Maintenance and informed them of that I was writing the aircraft for a possible hard landing with minimal flare. We originally had a plane swap; while on the swap I grabbed some dinner. And eventually received a call from the Chief Pilot confirming that there was damage to main landing gear and he wanted to hear from me what had happened. I explained to the Chief Pilot what had happened; and Chief Pilot took notes and said to follow up with an Ops report.A firmer landing than normal due to minimal flare that caused the main landing gears to come into contact with the runway quicker than normal due to minimal flare. FO barely flared during a visual approach at Runway XXL in ZZZ that ended up causing a hard landing situation.[Reporter recommends] possibly rotate brand new FO's and make them fly more often. FO informed me he had not flown in a while and was still low time FO. He did a great job on our leg to ZZZ1 as Pilot Monitoring (PM); and then a great job on his leg from ZZZ1 to ZZZ until his landing flare where everything happened to quick and he ended up barely flaring and making contact with the main landing gear a bit firmer than usual; which prompted me to write up the landing.
CRJ-900 Captain reported new low time First Officer assigned mid trip experienced a hard landing.