Pictures will eventually make there way out regardless and once you see just where along the runway the tail struck, you will no doubt form your own conclusions
Several posters here have mentioned that there
must be photos or video of this aircraft during it's final approach to land (thereby apparently confirming whether or not the landing gear was extended ...) but I am not sure that is a certainty!
If some aircraft spotter
was specifically shooting photos or videos of this aircraft shortly prior to landing, and maybe even through the unfolding incident, I feel sure those images would have been out 'in the wild' already. But I don't suppose a nation such as the UAE takes too kindly to folk with long-lens cameras sitting out in the open around airport boundaries?
That means the only other likely source of pre-accident/unfolding imagery is going to be surveillance video (astonishlingly, in this digital age, usually grainy and indistinct) from security cameras on or near the airport. The UAE are almost certainly already requisitioning all such likely candidate footage, so we are
very unlikely to ever see that stuff in the public domain.
The very limited video we have already seen of the latter stages and aftermath of the accident seem to have come from phone cameras, initiated when witnesses became aware something had
already gone awry. The last few seconds of the aircraft sliding to a halt are all that has been seen of the aircraft actually in motion. I would be curious to know if anyone can actually determine how long after the aircraft came to a standstill that the explosion occurred - I
suspect it was some notable time after evacuation had been completed.
So, expecting to see further video or photography of the late stages of this aircraft's arrival at Dubai is, I think, very unlikely. The unfortunate result of that is the speculation being developed here, about whether or not the gear was down before landing, will just continue. Reach for the chill pills, people!
