I did watch the entire takeoff, from the vantage point of taxiway C1.
I don't think you'll find flap setting was a contributing factor, I'[m not a jet jockey but the amount of flap they had set, looked the same from the outside as any other 747.
Windshear wouldn't have had anything to do with it either, surface w/v at the time was a gentle southerly about 10 kts, not even any convection to bump things about.
In fact everything looked normal until the rotate, I thought they'd lost an engine because of the bloody great cloud of smoke that came up.
As previously pointed out, the first turn onto finals put them ridiculously through the centreline, probably a good half mile to the right at about a mile distance and stupidly high, they went around back towards Weymouth and came back for the second attempt, still right of centreline from the finals turn, high and bloody fast and obviously heavy, the wings were fully bowed upwards, and they landed just about abeam A3 with a almighty crunch of tyres. I wouldnt want to speculate on descent rates at touchdown etc, but they were definitely high crossing the threshold and it was far from the softest or sweetest landing I've ever seen.
Me thinks there'll be a couple of job vacancies at SQ this morning
