Sounds like the old it snowed a bit so we put de-icing fluid on the snow (you can see the flaw there already, snow isn't sheets of ice) which melts the snow then covers the runway surface with a waterproof film that makes the water sit on it in pools, which then freeze into great big ice pancakes. Seen it a million times, slid sideways up the runway in a Landrover a million times because of it.
'The temperature plunged quite quickly and that had not been forecast so the de-icing programme had to respond to it rather than prepare for it'. So if the temperature had already started to plunge, anyone with half a brain would have worked out what was about to happen.
So glad I'm retired and sitting at home with a cup of tea instead of still having to deal with this sort of muppetry.