Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
Maybe after it became apparent that reverse wasn't being deployed ?
Bingo! I think we all assume that the approach was something abnormal and causing the crew to stress and overload. However, the way aircraft touched the runway (no excessive vertical speed) suggest that had the pilots not forgot to release the gear down, or check the correct status of the gear lever (in fact that they lowered and raised them up again at 1700ft) that they were expected to have a "normal landing" and were "comfortable" with the manner they approached it, and as I said before this flight never made into the news. It looks like that actual situation did not go to catastrophic until they realised that aircraft is not slowing down, reverse is not activating and plane just glides on the ground effect over the runway and it downed on them that something bad happened and it is time to abort landing. So this wayward approach might not been the first time something like this happened, and hence they were confident it will work again, hence again deliberately ignoring the warnings and refusing the most logical way to do the orbit, etc. This version will fit most of the fact presented so far, without too much of additional ifs.