Originally Posted by
pattern_is_full
As to the gear anomaly - is it not true that the weight distribution in most pax jets is about 92% main gear, 8% nose gear? Seems like that would make it easy for the nose gear to "hop" while the main gear "crunched."
As to the cause - as scifi alludes to, runway friction (with ice) was apparently about 60% of that reported to the crew, and possibly even to ATC itself. (.27 vs. .44)
That loading is about right. If you get out of sorts with it, then you get a fairly unpleasant rotate transition from ground to air, where the aircraft needs a large elevator input to rotate, and immediately the MLG come off the ground the elevator input has to be reduced to avoid an excessive pitch rate. There is at least one aircraft that this is a daily irritation on, takes away from an otherwise pleasant handling aircraft.