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Old 20th November 2003 | 01:37
  #40 (permalink)  
GlueBall
 
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,627
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From: UTC +8
It had been said before....

At a height of only 200 feet (less than the height of the control tower) Captain Marty should have and could have put the airplane down into a farmer's field straight ahead instead of fighting to stay airborne on 2+ engines, with gear jammed in the down position with insufficient, decreasing airspeed!
He had received 4 desperate "Airspeed" calls from his First Officer. And the First Officer himself should have been much more assertive and reacted according to his own survival instinct and pushed the control column forward. A semi-controlled crash landing is always better than stalling, rolling sideways and falling out of the sky.

Captain Marty was driven by the lure of Le Bourget, its runway was clearly visible and less than 7 miles distant. Contributing to his lack of prompt critical airspeed response conceivably was due to the usual Simulator Training Mind-Set...where all inflight emergencies miraculously have always ended safely on a reachable pavement.
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