In the case of Manchester I'd be poking my nose at Hawarden which is 2,043 metres long and once again available without flying over built up area's.
Have you tried looking up from the newspaper and out of the window?
In the case of New York Sully managed to park in the river Hudson knowing full well if he failed to pull it off only the crew and passengers would die. I'm sure he had that option in mind for many years of operating out of NY.
In my opinion a multitude of current captains cannot think outside of the loop.
We now have a lot of 'systems managers' who fail when it goes wrong as the Air France disaster proved.
The BA crew could have flown a straight line out of Heathrow and been on the deck at Brize quicker that flying around London and caused a lot less hassle.
They knew just after rotation the cowls had departed. Why fly around the M25?
Last edited by Ye Olde Pilot; 2nd Jun 2013 at 21:39.