SLF wants to play 20 questions
Sorry I'm too dense to keep up. A few questions:
1) Did the pilots deliberately put the plane down on the grass?
In the case of issues with the landing gear (as hinted in some unverified accounts) and/or they anticipated a stall and hard fall, perhaps the notion of a softer surface than tarmac might have some appeal.
2) Would the outcome, in retrospect, likely have been as fortunate had they landed (with same force) on the runway?
With the fuel spilling out, perhaps it was just as well they avoided the tarmac and a potential rain of sparks all over the place.
3) Was the stall-like nose up movement at the very end as seen in the video intentional or an unwanted consequence of whatever failures the aircraft suffered?
4) If intentional, what was the purpose of it, assuming the angle of attack was higher than it should have been for a smooth landing, as appeared to be the case to my untrained eyes?
5) It is generally not entirely unreasonable to assume that the timing of the failure was crucial? A little shift in time and they either fall down in the residential area or make a reasonably normal landing.
There, I've proven that I have no clue how these flying cans work, my apologies for interrupting your discussion. My reasoning above comes from a lifetime of never flying a plan. Just trying to get a grasp on some basics and perhaps understand how fortunate the outcome really was.