12-29-2024, 08:54 PM
ILS signals need to be elevated if there's terrain potentially blocking signals from it. At DFW the ILS antenna is raised at the airport. The airport here had a hill 6 miles away, and mountains nine miles away. They can't put the ILS off site, and it needs to be reasonably lined up with the runway. With the terrain, and area around the airport, when they built the facility the decision was made to put the ILS antenna off one end of the runway. The normal approach path would have had them come in over the berm, and touch down clear of it. For whatever reason, the crew made the decision to land opposite direction. They still might have been okay, but the higher speed caused them to float, and they didn't touch down until approximately 4000 feet down the runway based on estimates.
As for "if they landed the other way everyone would be alive", there's no way to know that. They might have gone off the other end, and engine dig in, the airplane flip and catch fire, or any number of other things. You can speculate all you want about what might have been, but there's no way to know with an accident like this. Once you're off the runway and onto soft ground, all bets are off. Especially with everything hanging down that can dig into the ground.
As for "if they landed the other way everyone would be alive", there's no way to know that. They might have gone off the other end, and engine dig in, the airplane flip and catch fire, or any number of other things. You can speculate all you want about what might have been, but there's no way to know with an accident like this. Once you're off the runway and onto soft ground, all bets are off. Especially with everything hanging down that can dig into the ground.
Logic is dead. Long live BS.
