Just as background, I've been a pretty frequent flyer for about five or six years.  At one point, I had elite status on two major airlines.  I've also been through PPT ground school (it was an elective at my High School), am currently studying the FAA H-8083-3B.  I also have two friends who are private pilots, one who flies in air racing.

I flew a couple of weeks ago from PHX to Louisville for a class put on by the DOT.

On the flight back from Chicago to PHX on American Airlines (airplane was an MD Super 80 is American's nomenclature I believe), we came in across the Canyon Lake area during out descent.  We made a 1G right turn to 270 to line up with the runway.  Flaps and slats down, gear down.  I started to see landmarks but something didn't seem right.  Suddenly, we pitched nose down and picked up a bunch of speed, as well as banking hard to the right.  Because of the altitude difference, I was looking hard now, and I saw the airport and runway as we veered away from it.  At this point there are assorted gasps from passengers and everyone is looking around wide eyed.  I'm thinking the pilot has decided to go full Jihad and plow us into the ground somewhere there are a lot of people or something, we are seriously nose down and judging from the position of the runway in my window, probably had turned to 330 or thereabouts.  Going fast too, the wind is roaring around the fuselage.

Then we executed a turn back to the left, roughly a heading of 200*, still heading down fast.  Just as I'm about to snap, the nose comes up quickly and we start a lazy turn back to the right.  We literally turned into the runway coming over the perimeter fence, and touched down fast with a solid thump.

People all around were saying "what the hell was that all about?"  My seat mate said something to the effect of "I've never seen anything like that, I thought we were dead!".

After thinking about it, the only thing I could come up with was perhaps the aircrew forgot to reset the altimeter for PHX after leaving Chicago.  But I don't know the altitudes of each, they may not be that far off for all I know.

The Captain came back and stood in the aisle while we deplaned.  I said "hey, nice landing!" and he said "yeah, uh, we were a little high coming in there".

So is it standard practice during an ATC approach, when you realize your a way too high and a couple miles out, to break off the approach and reef a couple steep nose down turns to get to the glideslope and runway heading right before you cross the threshold in a large passenger aircraft?

ETA: my wife was tracking the flight on Flight Aware.  The last two entries literally go from 1800 feet to 0.  LOL.  I should have done a screen cap.

Turns such as you were describing are usually used more for spacing.  In every jet I have flown (not the MD-80 I would like to add) once you are "dirtied up". Altitude loss is just a matter of pulling the power back and lowering the nose.   It is not uncommon for ATC to forget you or leave you high for some other unknown reason.  Just my 2c.

It's impossible to say from you're description.  

However, each landing Has to be Stabilised by 1000 feet agl.   Gear down, full flaps, on speed, on a normal glidepath,normal rate of descent.  

In the old days, you could fudge it a little, and make corrections.  Now days, the aircraft itsself will rat you out via Acars, if you are outside parameters.  

Every airline encourages the pilots to perform a "go around" if the approach goes outside those parameters, or for any other reason at all.  

People think the airplanes practically fly themselves, but that is the farthest thing from the truth.

I've recently returned to airline flying after a 12 year hiatus flying corporate jets, and I'm here to tell you: Every approach is challenging, none are routine, and you have to be on your "A" game 100% of the time.  

If we didn't have ATC requesting speed, altitude and runway changes, all the time, it would be easy.   As it is, that last ten minutes is a very demanding, fast paced environment.

That makes sense.  The first thing I thought was some sort of collision avoidance, but we were also definitely far too high.  ETA - when me made the first turn, I could see the runway and it looked to me like we were too close to get down to an appropriate altitude if we had gone straight in.  I thought maybe someone had taken off from the other runway and turned to intersect our flight path, but that doesn't make sense because at PHX the runways are parallel, everyone is going east or going west.  Perhaps someone got onto the runway to take off and didn't get clear in time?

They never actually have control.    You may be referring to a "visual approach".   If you have the airport in sight 20 miles out, you are cleared for the visual.

As an aside, those MD80s are ancient and I don't like flying on anything with a T-tail.  

From O-Hare to Louisville, I was on one of the new Embraer 195s.....it's a neat little airplane!

We were definitely not on the normal glidepath and rate of descent at 1000 ft.  We were still turning when we came by the new light rail setup on the west end!

You can be in a turn.  In fact, many approaches require a low turn to final.    

Incidentally, the flight track website doesn't give you any usable info with regards to the approach.

However, you can rest easy in knowing, that if anything was out of parameters, the approach data will be reviewed by the flight managers and training department.

Uh, what exactly is wrong with a t tail in your opinion? 727 anyone?

Cut me some slack, pal.

The stewardess gagged and bit me on final, causing me to spill my scotch but I got 'er back in shape and we all walked away from it.  

It's just a damned shame about the scotch.  I don't drink the cheap shit.

OP. the answer always awaits in the aviation forum.

Bob58, have you tried the leather masks with the gagball built in?

I can't help but wonder if the pilots had a visual on the wrong airport. There's a number of fields around there with similar runway orientation. Deer Valley and Chandler are similar enough to potentially cause confusion. May have just focused on the wrong field until they realized (or were notified) of their mistake then took some heavy handed corrective actions to avoid being the next Southwest, Polar Dreamliner, etc, etc.

What direction did you land that day OP? To the east or west?

Westward.  Heading 270.  On the northmost runway, I guess that would make it 27R?

Could have been responding to a TCAS RA.

I've seen this once while driving East on the 202 by Tempe town lake. I was like WTF.

LOL, should have been on board!  I thought for sure our pilot had decided to Jihad us into one of the shopping malls.

I work on the final approach when they land to the west. Planes are maybe 500ft AGL max when the pass over us. I hope one never decides to burrow itself into our building.

You own a time machine to travel back to 1968?

Jealous.

Ha! I was in a Class B that will rename nameless. The controllers set me up on final at 3000 AGL 5 miles out in my Mooney and terminated radar services (I was on an IFR flight plan). Tower informed me that approach was working with trainees. I think sometimes they just forget about you and set you up with a crappy approach.

It's quite possible that most of what you experienced was a somatogravic illusion.  The "wind roaring around the fuselage" would have been caused by the flaps and/or gear extending.  Wind doesn't roar around the fuselage, only "dirty" things extending into the airstream.  Along with the noise, the sudden deceleration they cause will give you the illusion that the plane suddenly pitched down hard.  I get it every time I fly in an airliner, particularly if I'm sitting toward the back.  I actually anticipate it on takeoff, because I get a kick out of it.  If you look straight up the isle, when the throttles go forward, your brain will tell you that you tilted up at about a 30 degree angle.  It looks like the plane is popping a wheelie.  If they were moving pretty fast, dropped the gear and cut power at the same time, your brain can be utterly convinced that you're in a nose dive.

The illusion has caused quite a few good pilots to fly into the ground.  Google search results for "somatogravic illusion crash"

I determine what our pitch attitude is by referencing the horizon when possible.  I reference the roll attitude by referencing the wing tips against the horizon at a 90 degree angle to the airplane.  I'm pretty familiar with the difference in wind noise and the feel of the airplane, even a large one, when the plane is reconfigured for landing, i.e. slats deployed, flaps deployed, gear deployed.  I know how it feels when the throttles are reduced or advanced, the gear goes down, etc.  I've landed on a commercial flight (B737, A319, ERJ, and now MD80) probably 20 to 30 times over the last four years at Sky Harbor alone.  I've never experienced the phenomenon you are describing.  I am pretty certain that when I can see the airport and the horizon beyond at 10 O'Clock high, the nose of our airplane looking down the aisle to the cockpit door is significantly below the horizon visible out my window, the right wing is significantly below the horizon (there are homes and cars visible at the wing tip), and the left wing is well above the horizon, the aircraft is in a nose down pitch attitude and rolling to the right.  

Okay.  But for the record, you have never RECOGNIZED the phenomenon I described.  You wouldn't, without prior knowledge of it, but you have almost certainly experienced it at some point.  It's hard-wired into us, and like I said, it's utterly convincing.   I never did either, until I learned about it.

I've experienced it I think.  With the window shade down, relaxing.  After a few turns I felt like the airplane was going one thing, and opening the window shade showed that I was completely off.  I've never heard of the phrase "Somatographic Illusion" to describe that, but I am aware that it is essentially impossible to judge speed and attitude without visual references - either external cues or instrument.  Referencing the airplane against the visual horizon to determine attitude when flying VFR is a basic airmanship skill.  As I mentioned before, I'm not a pilot but I really did take a pretty awesome class that combined basic ground school with some mid level aerodynamics added on.  I've been up in a C172, C152, B1900 (a whole bunch), and a herd of commercial airplanes.  

A couple of pilots have IMed me to tell me that this approach wasn't that unusual and "there was never any risk".  From a pure risk management perspective, we traded one risk for another.  A descent rate outside the recommended limits always poses an increased risk, as does maneuvering off centerline during the final approach which may not give opportunity to regain the proper rate of descent and attitude prior to touchdown.  Here is an example of a short approach with a far-too-high rate of descent in a high performance airplane.  This pilot made the turn onto final only 6500 feet out, I don't remember from what altitude but he was quite high and dove for the runway due to a request from ATC to "expedite" landing and clearing the runway, as well as a missile warning from the airplane that landed just ahead.  



We didn't come in for a standard approach and landing as we were too high.  Rather than try to nose dive for the runway (a really bad idea with a Super 80 full of people), we flew the airplane in a steeply descending S turn, and on the final right hand turn onto the runway we were under power, leveled out, and flew it onto the runway with a pretty long rollout.  The left wing stayed above the horizon until just before touchdown indicating a turn.  The touchdown was solid but not hard.  It was some damned nice flying!  THAT said, the safety margins are there for a reason.  The more space between the holes in the swiss cheese, the less likelyhood of an incident.  I felt that had the descent and approach phases been made without any errors made (whether it was the aircrew, some other aircrew, or ATC), the maneuvering would not have been necessary.  A straight in, stabilized approach and landing is always the most safe, no?  From what I know which admittedly isn't very much beyond basic airmanship, if you can't achieve a stabilized approach on the proper glideslope within X distance from the runway, or there is a runway incursion during your final approach, or a TCAS alert, the recommended best practice is to initiate a go-around rather than making a snap decision to deviate radically in congested airspace and maneuver the airplane onto the runway.

That video must have been an instrument approach.  I cant see shit.  

ETA: Next time you fly, look straight up the isle when the thrust comes up.  Block any peripheral view out the window with your hand if you have to.  It always looks to me as if the plane rotates right away.