Narrative:

We were on the ILS to 4R at ewr and the wind was reported as approximately 340 at 12 knots. Subsequently; on the approach; I remember hearing tower say that wind was now approximately 14 gusting to 24 knots; and they also advised that a 757 was going to be taking off 4L; which is very close to 4R. We decided to fly the top of the bug for these conditions. I remember getting an increase in airspeed on approach and the first officer made an appropriate power reduction and then later increased the power to at least 53% and then I am not sure how much more the power was increased from there. I saw the 757 take the runway and thought that we would be down before he rolled. The approach seemed stable to me and the speed over the threshold seemed to be ref [minus] a couple knots and I called that out. It seemed that just prior to touchdown I saw the airspeed somewhat below ref but I don't recall it being an excessive amount. I called that out and the first officer was already simultaneously adding power and we impacted very firm; to me and my first officer's surprise. It seemed as though the bottom just fell out with no time to do anything about it. I decided that even though now overhead bins came open or no damage was noted on postflight that I should err on the side of caution and contact maintenance. We were not exactly sure what the vertical speed was at touchdown so maintenance advised that we should document this; which I did. I am not sure exactly why the event occurred. The wind gust was substantial and they did depart a 757 on a closely spaced runway and the wind direction could have easily moved this wake into our area. It is also possible that power was reduced too early or by too much of an amount in the flare. In discussing the event later we both noted that we never received any 'sink rate' warnings or other indications that the vertical speed was a problem. I also remember closely watching the pitch in the flare and noted it to be only around 5-6 degrees and it is possible that I may have been focusing too much on the pitch and excessive sink rate may have gone unnoticed by me.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A CRJ-900 Captain reported a hard landing following what may have been a wake vortex encounter from a departing B757; or perhaps just a wind gust.

Narrative: We were on the ILS to 4R at EWR and the wind was reported as approximately 340 at 12 knots. Subsequently; on the approach; I remember hearing Tower say that wind was now approximately 14 gusting to 24 knots; and they also advised that a 757 was going to be taking off 4L; which is very close to 4R. We decided to fly the top of the bug for these conditions. I remember getting an increase in airspeed on approach and the First Officer made an appropriate power reduction and then later increased the power to at least 53% and then I am not sure how much more the power was increased from there. I saw the 757 take the runway and thought that we would be down before he rolled. The approach seemed stable to me and the speed over the threshold seemed to be ref [minus] a couple knots and I called that out. It seemed that just prior to touchdown I saw the airspeed somewhat below ref but I don't recall it being an excessive amount. I called that out and the First Officer was already simultaneously adding power and we impacted very firm; to me and my First Officer's surprise. It seemed as though the bottom just fell out with no time to do anything about it. I decided that even though now overhead bins came open or no damage was noted on postflight that I should err on the side of caution and contact Maintenance. We were not exactly sure what the vertical speed was at touchdown so Maintenance advised that we should document this; which I did. I am not sure exactly why the event occurred. The wind gust was substantial and they did depart a 757 on a closely spaced runway and the wind direction could have easily moved this wake into our area. It is also possible that power was reduced too early or by too much of an amount in the flare. In discussing the event later we both noted that we never received any 'sink rate' warnings or other indications that the vertical speed was a problem. I also remember closely watching the pitch in the flare and noted it to be only around 5-6 degrees and it is possible that I may have been focusing too much on the pitch and excessive sink rate may have gone unnoticed by me.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.