Doesn't really answer whether they were down and locked.

If the gear was down and locked, but they landed very hard, I wouldn't expect it to look like that. And clearly it didn't roll to a stop.

One rumour says they went up, another says they were down.

Is it possible they selected gear up on GA when climbing, and then selected gear down when they realised they were going down again? And that it hit the deck before the wheels locked?

So what now? Tailstrike from a botched approach or windshear?

As we know from the 777 at LHR - the gear is very tough. Given it slid towards that side, I'd suggest the gear was down and locked, at least on the LHS.

A different angle on this one. Looks like they were not locked. Transitioning up or down. Anyones guess

Re : gear pics post-crash.

Think gravity!

There's no hydraulic power to the landing gear, and any mechanical unlocks are unlikely to have survived either.

Gear retraction takes time.

I suspect the gear was still being retracted when the aircraft settled onto the runway.

My 2 cents worth

Its a shame if it turns out that this accident was the result of an over zealous gear retraction. Why are we so keen to retract the gear in a all engines operating GA? Its the least important thing to be doing. Thrust is more important and mode confirmation is more important. I have seen crews in sims permit a focus on LG retraction distract them from the bigger ticket items.

You must be Ozie coz they like to fly "hand fly" and is nothing wrong with that as long as your PM is happy coz hand flying creates additional workload on PM especially in a busy environment...
However hand flying will not improve your knowledge of SOP's clearly not followed by 521 crew :sad:

I agree, gear down takes app 30 sec to complete and gear up app 20 sec, assuming they did retract gear in a GA...

Out of interest - does the logic allow a gear 'reversal'? - ie will it lower halfway through an 'up' - or is it flip-flop (toggle)?

Just read a basic report supposedly from one of the pilots on social media... please don't shoot the messenger. Was a few mins ago on twitter and I can't find it right now but this is roughly what it said.

During the flare an updraft caused the a/c to float past the end of the TDZ, G/A initiated with positive climb and gear up however speed then rapidly decayed below the top of the amber band due windshear. Windshear procedure was 'done' however the a/c then crash landed. Mayday declared at this stage and evacuation initiated.

Well I don't see a 777 with both engine operating normally not get out of a windshear, especially being nowhere near MTOW. There muss be more to the story...

Perhaps the clue about the state of the landing gear is the lack of damage to the bottom of the engine?

Which one?? The one we see on the left in passengers video whilst exiting that is burning on its bottom from having served as a landing skid.

or the one on the right that got run over and ended up on top of the rh wing?

Loma, I think he is referring to the left hand engine. If the wings were a bit "right wing down" and there was some drift to the right as it came down, depending on a bunch of factors there might be enough side load for the right gear to fail since it was coming down harder than usual ... as the right absorbs energy, and the RH engine does, and the right wing does .. maybe the LH MLG doesn't fail so the LH engine doesn't get as much punishment as the right?

This is all maybe and guessing, and I do not have enough pictures to look at as the plane slid down the runway to get a sense of its "flat" or "tilted" attitude to support that idea.

A familiar mistake ex Airbus pilots who have converted to Boeings make is to firewall the throttles forgetting to press the TOGA switch in the event of a go around. The result is the aircraft accelerates down an ILS if the autopilot is still engaged. I wonder if this could have been a factor here.

But presumably they would have been pulling back which would disconnect the autopilot (if you're fighting it) and this assumes Dubai has a backbeam.

PF is Boeing pilot not converted Airbus:confused:

Thanks - I did wonder if he had converted off Airbus but evidently not then. The Bailey article is probably the most plausible explanation then.

As a mere SLF, wondering if there are definite SOPs about deciding exactly what constitutes "positive rate/climb" before it can be called out? Does it have to be an ascent that lasts a certain amount of time and/or at a certain min rate of vertical speed for example, i.e. Not just a brief moment of lift such as off a bounce ?

Many thanks for this most informative forum.

FWIW IMHO If gear was transition between up OR down and hydraulics are lost, gravity will normally lower the gear ( free fall ) if in flight. It may well be that the position in photo was the result of picking up the wing thus allowing the gear to fall even more since it was unlocked when fit hit the shan and plane came to rest .