Farcaster

aviation

Aviator, diver, Etherean, nexialist, PhD in aviation ∩ climate science | Host of /diving /ethfinance /eth-staker /geopolitics /science /singapore /thomas

Update: I've now seen the video of the landing taken from a security camera. The aircraft didn't flare / pitch up and just kept descending with a level attitude into the ground at an excessive vertical speed. It was also not banking, so it looks like we can rule out a wingtip touching the ground first.

So, it was presumably a very hard landing that caused gear collapse and wing separation on one side, and then rolling over due to the asymmetry of the other wing still being attached and generating lift.

My bet is on sudden windshear just before the flare causing the aircraft to slam into the ground. The weather looked terrible in YYZ.

Windshear at landing is really the one edge case that we can't do much about safety-wise. As much as we have windshear detectors on the ground and on the aircraft, if it happens at that exact sweet spot just before the flare, there isn't enough time to spool up the engines and go around.

At least in those rare occasions, the height is so little that the accident is survivable

we are truly lucky to have very high-quality experts posting regularly on farcaster