Probably not a good place to have a wall.
The wall is there to prevent an overrunning aircraft from ramming into whatever’s behind the wall. It’s obviously not meant to stop a heavy jet at that speed, but for a smaller or slower aircraft, it could mean the difference between arresting the plane as softly as possible under the circumstances, and crashing the airplane anyways into trees, the localizer antennas, or public roads with cars and people on them, in a place that airport rescue and firefighters can’t easily reach.I was completely incorrect about that specific airport. The mound is part of the localizer antenna, which was not visible on the video. More: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzmptA6s-1g
There seem to be a lot of runways out there with walls, buildings and friggin’ ravines at the end.
I get that it can’t always be easy to find suitable land that can cater to long, flat runoff areas, but it certainly feels like a calculated risk to skip it, given how (relatively) frequent overruns are.
They don’t have crashworthy fuel cells? WTF?
No fuel cell is going to withstand a 70,000 kg jet crashing at high speeds.
Was it a Boeing plane?
Scientists are still trying to determine who manufactured the Boeing 737-800.
Does it matter in this instance?
Not as far as impacting walls go, but a working landing gear probably would have been beneficial in getting the plane stopped before hitting the wall.
Disclaimer: I haven’t read up on this and don’t know if the landing gear wasn’t extracted due to malfunction or some other reason.
The landing gear was up because the crew left it up. This may have been on purpose to reduce drag (the flaps were also not extended). This can be done when the plane has lost both engines and needs to glide.
Landing gear have many failsafes, the last of which is to literally let them just drop by gravity. If the landing gear were the malfunction, the plane would’ve spent more time circling.
It’s a 15 year old plane. It had nothing to do with manufacturing.
Wow you sound smart.
Well, I meant to be a little funny, but I should’ve remembered that the internet will always hurry to dish out a douchebag label rather than thinking someone had harmless intentions/giving benefits to doubt.
First news I saw said “birds were the problem” but then I read it was a Boeing
The Boeing 737-800 is a remarkably safe plane. Bird strikes can happen to any plane.
That’s true. It’s only about 1.5 accidents per year.
