.. a shocking tragedy, 179 killed while on the ground. Most reports focusing on the 'concrete' ILS transponder 'wall' off the end of the runway, presumably because reporters know something about brick walls - they certainly know little about the B737. If I hear another Sky News reporter say that the 'landing gear' was not working....
There's only one logical explanation for that B737 to come in and attempt a 'crash' landing in the configuration that it did. The airliner came in like a glider and put down on its belly ..because it was glider. The landing gear on the B737 does not fail - it can be deployed manually by pulling on the three long cables behind the seats in the cockpit. The glider 'theory' obviously presumes that neither engine was developing full thrust; after all the B737 can operate reasonably comfortably on one engine and redundancy is such that one engine can power most nearly all of the systems. Coming in as a glider though immediately poses other problems, horribly evident on watching the video footage - the ground effect meant that the aircraft 'floated' along the runway ..and put down far too long. With the airliner flying like a glider, the landing gear and flaps could not be deployed - minimal drag configuration was perhaps the only way the crew could stand a chance of getting back to the runway. The other possibility, as mentioned by Juan Brown on his Blancolerio channel - given the elapse of only 7 minutes from birds strike to touch-down - is that the crew didn't have time to run through any check list and failed to deploy the gear. That doesn't bear thinking about. And from what the commentator below says (Max Afterburner channel) in this 'NO-TIME' scenario, the crew didn't/wouldn't/couldn't run through their emergency check-list that includes gear down where a decision has to be taken immediately. I used to hate check-lists. Although they exist and you could consult them, in a real emergency you simply don't have the time to consult them - you need to know them! (all 100 pages of the emergency procedures section!) The crew fought to keep the machine airborne for as long as possible, that is the only explanation that fits what we have seen. With the tragic consequences we have all witnessed. A single click to view the video here..
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