Originally Posted by fdcg27
I hope I didn't come off as flippant, since that wasn't my intent.
It's just that I wonder how many times crews need to repeat the mistakes of others?
This accident replicates one involving and AF A340 in Toronto as well as another involving an AA 737-800 at Montego Bay.
While I agree that it is a pity that those in the back lost their personal possessions as well as their pets, I feel no pity for the guys up front.
How many times do crews need to make unstabilized approaches dodging cells before they finally figure out that it's a bad idea?
Had this crew either requested a hold or landed at one of the many available airports in the area to wait things out, this flight would have ended without incident.
The fact that dodgy approaches usually work out just fine is more a matter of luck than a good justification for trying one.
Not at all, and I don't disagree with your sentiments.
As a Navy trained aviation safety officer we strive to have a culture of open and honest reporting in order to prevent near misses from becoming an incident for others who weren't so lucky.
It's been said many times, wave offs are free. Sure it's easy to sit here in a chair and not in the cockpit and judge as there's a very small window of time to make critical decisions when things are going poorly. But when you're in a bad spot having the wherewithal to wave off a bad approach can be the difference between an incident and recovering safely on another try or at another airport.
The potential impact of weather in the area and propensity for a microburst to set up a dangerous tail wind component combined with standing water on the runway can't be ignored either.
That doesn't alleviate the crew of blame for not waving off, but it's a possible explanation for why things went so badly so quickly.