Having used the Sioux City accident in CRM training quite a no. of times, I have seen various interwievs with the crew. In one of them, Al Haynes described why the aircraft did not touch down in a wings-level attitude.
If memory serves me right (don't have the tapes @ hand), he said something along the lines of "...when I got the 30 ft. call-out, training & routine took over - I closed the throttles, even though we had just agreed that thrust was the only thing holding that wing up...".
If this is the case, the choice of landing surface would not have mattered as to the likelihood of the airplane cartwheeling. But no doubt did coming down inside the fence contribute to post-crash survivability. The guys handled that one as near to textbook perfect as one could expect - they have my deepest respect & admiration.
Only off-airport landing I've heard off w/o any fatalities was an MD-8X out or ARN many years back where both engines failed due ice ingestion. The guys managed to glide it into a field - they kept it in 3 pieces
and everybody walked away, only a couple of broken arms & legs, that was all. However, I have no doubt that Captn. Rasmussen would have preferred an airport
Targaman is spot on in listing the reasons why we only train what can be expected to kill us i.s.o. spending time on marginal cases, and I agree that training stuff that might only save 1 flight over 20 years will take away time from training the stuff that will save 5 flights over 10 years. I hope that command upgrade training in most companies provide suficient scenarios for people to feel comfortable with their ability to act in an intelligent & prudent way should they be running the show that one day in a billion.
Again, would be interested to hear scenarios from other CRI/Es that - used in moderation - can give people a chance to gain confidence in this kind of operation.
Used to give turbine command upgrades a scenario involving some mountains enroute & then having 1 gear fail to retract after t/o with wx this side of the range just below approach minima
I know, I'm not a very nice person...
Brgds fm
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