Originally Posted by
S.F.L.Y
[ if the autopilot had bug speed priority over glideslope, the GPWS would have provided adequate warning ...]
That could have been quite useful to the medal guys as well
Maybe. Or maybe it just hides the problem for longer - if speed is maintained then you've no indication of engine problem (real or autothrust), just a slow pitch excursion to spot, in IMC... until the "what's it doing now" moment - "PULL UP"... So, not knowing your engines have failed, you pull up and firewall the throttles, and if you're BA38... nothing happens. Except you are now nose up again and losing speed, waiting for the spool-up (that isn't going to come) because the automatics hid the engine problem from you.
Does this get you better than BA38 ? I don't know. Might be an interesting experiment, but my first thought is that it still
isn't going to get you onto the runway for a normal landing. Remember that unless you do that, you aren't going to do better than BA38 actually did (some pax thought it
was a normal landing...). Come down any shorter than BA38 and you're in buildings or cars, go longer and you slide onto the runway and then on down it, in a shower of sparks and fuel.
To quote the guy with the medal, with the benefit of hindsight and no doubt having replayed those final seconds in his head countless times:
I have seen the figures, and wouldn't want to end up anywhere other than the BA38s' impact point... no further forward, no further back