Apparently a small history lesson is in order. Please recall the following accidents:
- B737 goes off end of runway on landing in Burbank, CA after the crew continued a very unstable aproach and ended up in a gas station. While no one was seriously injured, the potential was very high.
- B737 crashes into the sea on departure out of Sharm el Sheik, Egypt. All on board lost due to an apparent loss of control by the Captain.
- B737 goes off end of runway at Chicago Midway, striking a car and killing a young child. Crew attempted landing on a contaminated runway with very marginal performance available. Captain was distracted because it was his first use of autobrakes, and reverse was selected very late.
Now can anyone recall any discussions on this or other forums, where Airbus proponents made accusations against the B737 technology, or making bold statements suggesting that this would never have happened in an Airbus? I certainly don't recall any such points being made. Maybe some people are better at realizing that bad things can happen to anyone than others ...
Obviously there is much yet to be learned as to the cause of the accident at Tegucigalpa. But based on the internet videos showing the challenge of flying a visual approach there, Tegucigalpa is (or at least should be) a fair weather airport only when it comes to large jet operations. Assuming that the indications about the landing conditions are correct, then it's highly likely that this accident could have happened to anyone flying any aircraft type. IMHO, believing that bad weather ops can be carried out successfully at Tegucigalpa is more normalization of deviance that, like so many times before, has led to an unnecessary loss of life.