Several years ago Air Florida put one in at Washington National, the pilots were talking about doing a "soft-field" takeoff in a B737!!!!
Aww, come on. That Air Florida pilot was not planning to make a “soft-field” takeoff. Go back and re-read the transcript of the CVR. He was talking of taking off the nose wheel and then letting the airplane fly off the ground with very little rotation (only that which would get the nose gear off the ground – like a soft field takeoff).
As has been said, even on this thread, it’s a lot easier to “trash” the crew right away, than it is to wade through all the necessary facts before becoming judgmental. And, as for picking apart what a pilot said … I would suspect that half of the posters on this site would be right embarrassed if some of their “never-intended-to-be-heard-outside-of-the-cockpit” comments ever made the light of day.
The prudent thing to do here is 1) to pray for those injured or killed and pray for their families; and 2) keep our collective critical comments to ourselves until we learn at least some of the facts that were behind the decisions that were made.
________
AirRabbit