Originally Posted by mike734
After reading the NTSB info, it seems this landing was possible but with little room for error. I think I am on solid ground when I assert that SW pilots make more landings than virtually any other major airline pilot out there. You could not ask for a more experienced crew to attempt the landing. Unfortunately they are human and it appears they did not make a perfect approach and landing under conditions requiring near perfection. I hope they are cleared of "wrong doing" because this sounds like the kind of incident that could happen to any of us.
Preliminary calculations show that the airplane touched down with about 4,500 feet of remaining runway and was on the runway for about 29 seconds. Preliminary calculations also show that, for the runway conditions and use of brakes and thrust reverser that occurred, the stopping distance without hitting obstructions would have been about 5,300 feet (the actual stopping distance was about 5,000 feet). In addition, had the airplane landing into the wind, rather than with a tail wind, the stopping distance for a landing would have been about 1,000 feet less.
The investigation has revealed that runway 31C was used as the landing runway because it contained lower landing minimums for aircraft using the ILS approach. If runway 13C was used, the runway most aligned with the wind, pilots would have been unable to land because of insufficient landing minimums.
Too many accident factors: excessive tailwind, landing long, and no thrust reversers for 18 seconds. Sounds like a very poor decsion to land on this runway when a diversion would have been much more appropiate. Wonder if fuel was a factor or just tunnel vision to complete the flight.