Originally Posted by
Doug E Style
Would you still go around if the call comes after your engines have been scraping along the runway for fourteen seconds?
The captain wasn't in a state of mind where he was able to do that sort of reasoning. Certainly he still didn't notice that the F/O had retracted the gear.
In that state of mind, he was easily convinced by what sounded like an order. "Take off sir, take off !" That's an order.
I would just have liked the report to point out that based on performance calculations, had the gear been kept down throughout the approach, the airplane would have been able to land at the beginning of the runway, on the correct profile, maybe with some excess speed.
The 3400m dry runway then would have been ample room to land even at a ludicrous speed.
Even without the deceleration provided by the gear, had they landed on their wheels, 1500m down the runway, at 200 knots, the airplane at its mass would have been able to stop within the remaining runway length. Worst case they would have made a low speed runway excursion.