All I have to say in the matter is "Thank God For good old ILS"
All ILS localiser antenna arrays, need a large protected sterile 'Critical Area' in front of them for the guidance beam to correctly form. Usually this is nothing more than an expanse of grass on which the airport operator can do nothing but regularly mow when operations permit. It is, in this case, the 09R Loc Critical area which presented this 777 with a forgiving, spark supressing, fuel absorbing, cushion.
MLS however, which everyone thought would have replaced ILS years ago, should be able to operate with a much reduced critical area, allowing who knows what to be done with these patches of valuable real estate.
Sometimes the non progress of technology
is safer.
