FLYBYMIKE
One of the three most useless things in aviation is "runway behind you" and I suspect that many pilots who can plainly see the start of a runway might well be inclined to simply aim for it as a touchdown point, rather than the actual displaced threshold, and do so without necessarily considering the reason for the displacement.
That is exactly what I was trying to convey but failed to put it across so clearly, if at all, I have no knowledge of this particular incident and am not suggesting the following is what happened, but I remember on my first xc solo I landed at a field with a displaced threshold and I landed quite a bit before the threshold, now I was just a PPLbut I knew about displaced thresholds and why they were there and I also knew there was plenty runway after the threshold for my little 152 but my head told how and where to land at the particular field but my heart said get it down just in case I run out of runway, so in justifying what I wrongly concluded would be the “safest” option not based on aircraft performance or runway length but on an IMAGINED danger, I had created a REAL danger, as we all know the displacement is there for a reason and it is not just for the big boys doing approaches. The reason I specified in my earlier post that the runway was 2400 feet is that every spamcan pilot knows by reading the POH that that is more than enough to land on and they should eliminate from their minds the “best get it in and down regardless of what the marking say” panicked thought process (like I did) and give priority consideration to the POH and Airfield Facilities Directory and not what they imagine the runway to be based on a feeling or imagined threat.
Just my 2 cents from personal experience, and again absolutely no speculation as to what happened to these poor folks.