In any sector, there are good days, bad days, and those you just wish you could just forget. On October 12, 2025, a European Air Transport Leipzig Airbus A300-600F (registration D-AEAG) was performing a scheduled cargo flight (QY2212) from Leipzig (LEJ) to London (LHR).

YouTuber BIG JET TV captured the A300 performing a rather dramatic landing at London Heathrow, showing a tail strike and go-around. The aircraft which was landing on runway 09 Left, appeared to be on a generally stable approach path, but started banking left to right just as it was about to touch down.

On touchdown, the aircraft bounced and tail struck, and the crew decided to perform a go-around. At the time, there was a slight crosswind under 5 knots.

So what happened?

After the bounce, the nose starting coming down pretty quickly, and I suspect the pilot may have overcorrected to prevent the nose gear from slamming on the ground. Looking at the elevator, you can see the pilot pulling back sharply on the control column.

Separately, the spoilers deployed on landing to help slow the aircraft, but one unintended effect of this occurrence results in the aircraft want to pitch up. When spoilers deploy, they reduce lift near the wing root and downwash on the tail, shifting the center of lift rearward and creating a nose-up effect.

In normal circumstances, the combination of the natural nose-down effect and engineered aircraft countermeasures, helps minimize to this unintended side effect, but the pilot’s overcorrection unfortunately amplified this effect instead, resulting in the tail strike.

Normally a go-around is still allowed even with spoilers being deployed, but you can see the reversers activating for a second or two, which makes me wonder why they bothered to go around rather than trying to stabilize the aircraft on the runway.

After going around, the aircraft returned to the field 20 minutes later, landing safely on runway 09R.

European Air Transport Leipzig is a German cargo airline, owned by Deutsche Post, and operates cargo flights on behalf of DHL.