Originally Posted by
The Ancient Geek
Take-off run at MGW = 2,625 feet
Runway length = 12,000 feet
Therefore they were less than 1/4 of the way down the runway when they aborted.
Landing straight ahead was a no-brainer, they had room to do this and still have half of the runway to spare.
I agree with The Ancient Geek. Anyone who is familiar with the Dash-8 would recognize the 'plain old-fashioned common sense' that the crew applied to the decision-making process in this situation.