Originally Posted by Rainboe
I'm afraid witness reports from a ground viewpoint can be misleading in the extreme. I would suggest you were perhaps on the inside of the turn viewing obliquely. You can get peculiar visual effects. I had trouble explaining once to my first wife that a very distant contrail coming towards us was NOT an aeroplane climbing vertically! She could not see it. I would say what you witnessed was a visual circuit with a tight turn onto finals (Stockport-MAN about 6 miles=1800'- nothing unusual), maybe a bit undercooked until too late. In approach configuration, the 747 really has its nose very high, and coming towards you slightly after a turn, it will look steep. Any serious transgressions would have been thrown up on the flight recorder to be dissected on the fleet later. I was on the fleet then- it wasn't me and I recall absolutely no such incident!
Fair enough---
except that we were located on the outside of the turn, ( Heaton Norris to be exact by the railway bridge on the A6 --not the viaduct please note----it's about 3/4 of a mile from there to the North) and, whilst we have both seen plenty of 747's configured for approach and the "nose high" attitude you mention, this was not the case here. The nose came up in the turn--which was undercooked as you say, the power went "off" and there was a visible decay of speed--until the power went back on again--in a hurry!. I have seen very few 747's turn on to finals for MAN at that point, most are usually configured about 10miles away? ( and I have flown into MAN enough times on the jumpseat of various types to know the approach procedures over the years ) hence it grabbed our attention at the time. Sorry, but we know what we saw and both of us have enough flying / aviation experience between us to know that this was certainly an "oh S££t!" moment.