atakacs makes plain, simple and unemotional statements and immediately gets shot down in flames.
He was asked what he would have done. The point is there was not much could be done given the time and circumstances. Raising the flaps gained 50 metres. It is claimed that Boeing test pilots could do no better but I have seen no details of what they tried and what they achieved. The main contentious issue is the AP being allowed to fly the aircraft to the point of stall before the aircraft hit the ground with insufficient energy remaining to arrest the high rate of descent.
So apart from instinctively raising the flaps with no other ideas or options was there not a great element of luck involved in the outcome?
The accident has, on the face of it, had a detrimental effect on Peter's whole life. It could well have been me in his place having flown that aircraft only a few months previously. I have no idea how I would have reacted no more than anybody else truly knows although we can all imagine how we would want to have reacted having thought about it for 24 months.
Having no real options, no real time and raising the flaps from F30 to F25 in my mind reaffirms my belief that he (Peter) was an experienced and competent captain faced with an unprecedented situation who also had a healthy dollop of luck when he most needed it. Luck that the undercarriage broke off and absorbed so much energy, luck that there was a large grass undershoot, luck that the aircraft on its belly in the soft ground rapidly decelerated, luck that the aircraft hit nothing, luck it stopped before the hard surface, luck that no fire ensued.