Originally Posted by
lucille
So, 3 days later and no one knows (for sure) whether it was an undershoot or an over run. I’m beginning to wonder if the crew even knows.
Then it's a good job airliners have FDRs.
But you make a good point. The main reason we're still asking the question is that there have so far been no eyewitnesses coming forward who say that they saw the aircraft as it hit the water.
We have plenty of photographic evidence that the aircraft ended up SW of the airport, on the runway centreline and pointing away from the runway.
That doesn't necessarily preclude an undershoot on 04, but it would require that the aircraft rotated neatly through 180° before anyone had a chance to take a photo of it.
We've had suggestions from posters that it drifted round as a result of winds and/or currents after it had settled in the water, in the few minutes before the US Navy team arrived on the scene with their cameras, or that it spun round due to impact forces when it hit the water. The latter sounds less likely now that we have an interview from a passenger who made no mention of that, only of a double impact.
We have a report from the airport GM who says it came down short of the runway on final approach, but who doesn't claim to have actually seen it happen.
We have a report from a hotel employee who says he heard (but didn't see) the aircraft making what he thought was a normal landing, from a location 350 m from the runway (and 700 m from the aircraft's final position), suggesting that he had heard reverse thrust being deployed, only to be told later that it had gone into the water.
The only thing we can say for sure is that the jury's still out on this one ...