Originally Posted by
kenguan
Yeah, read that the BA 777 crew retracted flaps, that's why they managed to actually made it "safely" short of the runway.
BUT, as far as I can remember during my PPL training, you NEVER NEVER retract flaps after extending them while on final. You don't want to sink that close to the ground.
What the BA 777 crew did probably was not "per SOP" I think, but it worked. Retracting late stages of flaps reduced drag more than lift.
The USAir that ditched in the Hudson, the crew did something not "per SOP" too - I read that they switched on the APU even though it was not part of the engine out procedure, & that probably helped 'save' the aircraft.
But if you do something that is not part of the SOP & caused something bad to happen, you've had it...
You do everything as per SOP & still something went wrong, that's fine...
Good operating techniques are aircraft specific. There are lots of things that are good operating practices in light singles that would be an extremely bad idea in a heavy jet airliner, and vice versa..........