Originally Posted by
harrogate
Why would the ATC suggest a belly landing when the pilot reported both engines lost? There hadn't been any talk of gear issues. Or am I missing something?
Quite! I don't think you're missing anyting.
Something had put the likelyhood of a belly landing so firmly in ATC's mind that they actually included a question about it - most unconventionally - in their response to the g/a. They simply wouldn't say that without some
very compelling reason. I can think of no other feasible compelling reason other than that they'd already witnessed one seconds before.
Very clearly there was severe damage to both nacelles but no sign of u/c deployed - there's only one way that can happen, ground contact with gear retracted.
The speculation on sink after go-around is called and gear prematurely retracted (perhaps mistakenly instead of flap) sounds by far the most feasible way to circumvent all the warnings - a severe impact on both pods disabling the generators and quite possibly hydraulics and even oil system (my 320 tech is largely forgotten now - perhaps the entire accessory drive system?) which could accont for the rapid loss of both engines. It would be relatively easy and quite credible to severely mishandle a g/a at the end of a high-anxiety unstable approach.
Why fly away from such an event? With TOGA or someting like it already applied, the pucker factor has PF instinctively pulling back on his stick as contact is made and they are flying again. After so much confusion in the preceeding couple of minutes it would surprise me if a crew in that situaton would have the capacity to close the thrust levers and reland, it would only take a couple of seconds of freeze, if that, and they're 15' nose up climbing fast and utterly committed to the g/a. They may not even have had room to reject from there but one suspects that level of cognition may not have been present.
But why no flap deployed in the photos though? Did they get high enough to retract them?