Don't know much about other professions but in this airline business, NEVER, NEVER set up yourself or in any way get others to imply that you are a hero despite whatever great thing you think you may have accomplished. There a many out there EVER READY to knock you down, especially fellow pilots and airline employees who are failed pilot wannabes.
Capt Burkill and his copilots had very little time to cope with this highly unusual occurance and leaving the automatics on reduced workload leaving them free to deal with it. I believed they retracted the flaps to 20degrees which proved to be instrumental in them getting over the fence...these were certainly not pilots who " froze ". As to whether if a better outcome had occurred had he hand flown the " crippled 7 ", it's hard to say except that had he done so after clearing the fence, it would have been a more controlled touch down. However this is 20/20 hindsight with lots of time on the armchair!
Last edited by chintanmanis; 29th Apr 2008 at 21:57.