reptile said
Your first two points are very relevant and are almost certainly contributing factors. As for the long landing, I'm not too sure. I diverted to GRJ about 40mins after the ERJ parked in the weeds and had a long chat to the BA captain that was at the hold when Link landed. According to him the approach looked normal and they touched down just after the piano keys. It is virtually impossible to accurately judge approach speed as an outside observer and we'll have to wait for the FDR to see if they were too fast.
They nearly made it by the way - according to the BA crew they were slow (walking pace) by the time they got on the grass. The steep slope and the wet grass came into play however, making the outcome inevitable.
I imagine they were Comair pilots who fly BA franchise aircraft and not BA pilots per se. Now I know we all like tight but I think George is a bit too tight for a 777 or 747
