No doubt one of the outcomes of this crash will be a process of lobbying for some kind of arrestor bed at the end of 24L, assuming that the lobbyists are unable to get the ravine contour changed.
Is anyone able to comment on what would have happened to the cargo 747 at Halifax that over-ran the runway during an underpowered takeoff if it had happened to have entered an arrestor bed at the end of the runway? Its engines would still have been blasting away, presumably.
Most people seem to assume that the arrestor bed would only be used by a landing aircraft that had not stopped before the end of the runway. But what happens to a plane that is trying to takeoff that over-runs the runway and whaps into the arrestor system? Given that it is full of fuel, I presume that there is a high possibility of a flaming end to the journey.
To what extent does one need a clear over-run to enable an underpowered plane to take off versus an arrestor bed to stop a over-run by an overspeed landing plane? There seems to me to be a dilemma here about the use of the space at the end of a runway, assuming there is any such space available.