The first officer had difficulty maintaining localizer and glideslope as well as maintaining speed, the captain provided instructions to correct, the corrections made by the first officer were insufficient however.Vietnam Airlines Airbus A321, performing flight from Pleiku to Hanoi (Vietnam), was on final approach to Hanoi with a low time first officer flying the aircraft fully manually (autopilot and autothrust off).

The speed decayed and the rate of descent increased, in the flare the first officer applied a large nose up input to arrest the descent, the aircraft nonetheless touched down very firmly with the tail contacting the runway surface at 11:08L (04:08Z).

The aircraft rolled out without further incident, the crew was unaware of the tail strike and taxied the aircraft to the gate, where ground personnel discovered the damage to the tail. There were no injuries, the aircraft sustained substantial structural damage to sections 17 and 18.

The aircraft is still on the ground in Hanoi 63 hours after the occurrence.