Hard landing is a safety event in which the aircraft touches the ground abruptly at a faster rate of descent, resulting in maintenance intervention. In extreme cases, the fuselage may segment, the tire can burst, and passengers can get injured. As a common solution, airlines recur to policies that limit operation of the first officers in certain airports or stablish conditions when landing is allowed. It is assumed that the captain, who has more experience than the co-pilot, is more skilful in avoiding hard landings. However, this assumption has not been valid yet. Therefore, this article aimed to analyse quantitatively whether the occurrence of hard landing is directly related to the operation of the less experienced. For this, contingency tables, Chi-square test and T-test were used. The results show that there is no evidence that the pilot function is decisive for the occurrence of hard landing. In fact, the findings suggest a possible association between the occurrence of the event and the airport and the aircraft landing configuration. In conclusion, limiting first officers’ operations in certain airports due to hard landing is a myth and the airlines should conduct a deep investigation on the reasons why some airports and aircraft configuration are more prone to hard landings.