Did they know in advance that they were having problems?
Edit:
Answer: Yes
... the crew initiated a go around due to a unsafe nose gear indication, climbed to 4000 feet and entered a hold to work the checklists. After working the checklists the crew declared emergency and requested emergency services on stand by. The aircraft performed a low approach to runway 36L, positioned for another approach to runway 36L and landed without nose gear extended at 08:54L (12:54Z) about 12 minutes after the second go around and about 30 minutes after the first go around.
There is an algorithm for everything in aviation. If you suspect your landing gear is not functional, you typically fly by a tower and have them make visual confirmation. Then you have another algorithm (they call them procedures) for how to land without gear. The airport likewise has a checklist of everything to do in this case. All of these procedures are hard won, the NTSB uses every hull failure and fatal accident to analyze what went wrong and how to create a better procedure.
> There is an algorithm for everything in aviation
This is how I got my commercial pilot's license, and I'm a senior software engineer.
It just "clicked" with my brain to follow specific procedures ("algorithms") for absolutely everything. Checklists, strict rules, "flows", handling emergencies. It all felt natural to me.
They will throw random stuff at you during checkrides. Pull the power back on one of the engines right after takeoff saying it failed, fail instruments that you were using to navigate, blindfold you ("foggles") and put you almost upside down and then say "recover!".
But you have everything so ingrained in your mind by that point that it's almost robotic. You just look at the inputs (almost upside down, engine #2 is gone, no attitude indicator, whatever it is) and know what the output is supposed to be (roll to unload Gs, lower the nose, full power, check the standby AI, etc).
I happen to work well when there are strict rules and procedures. If this, then that.
When you are robotically rolling to unload Gs does it still make your heart go boom!?? I love the idea of flying. I see crop dusters and private planes flying in all the time and it makes me wonder if I ought to try it out.
My Private Pilot training was almost 30 years ago, but after a while it stops being exciting. And that was a big part of why I dropped out: it had become about as interesting as driving in rush hour traffic.
Like the situation OP says: you scan instruments to analyze the situation, determine what to do to recover and apply that procedure. If it doesn't work, or something else goes wrong during that procedure, you adapt to another procedure. Remember, that during every flight with an instructor, you're being trained on one thing or another, so after a while all the "emergencies" seem routine. You'll be turning onto Final to land and suddenly your instructor will decide that your flaps failed so you have to land without them, or just as you're flaring for a landing he'll tell you to go around, etc.
It certainly results in well-trained pilots, but it also gets very boring.
I once loved the idea of flying as well, and I have a miserly 18 flight hours on my record, accumulated 23 years ago.
The immediate reason to stop was the fact that the more I did it, the more nauseous I got, but by then I had already decided that flying was not nearly as exciting as I expected it to be. Stopping was an easy decision to make.
That said, I also have friends who still totally love it.
And when there is not a tower nearby, you, uhh... find a way. My buddy was flying into one of the many uncontrolled airports in NorCal, and there was a guy in a single-engine retractable gear circling the airport. When Buddy made his downwind call, the Guy radioed "Hey I'm not getting any indication whether my gear is down or not, can you fly by me and tell me if it's down?" It was down, so Guy ended up attempting the landing with a bit more confidence than he started out with.
I was on a commercial plane where the pilots could not tell if the gear was completely down and locked and got someone on the ground to look as we flew by slowly at low altitude. It appeared to be down, but they still landed very gingerly. Thankfully it was fine.
I recall a mid air collision that occurred that way once. I forget the exact crash name, but IIRC a civilian aircraft was trying to spot for damage on another aircraft and they got too close.
Not that people shouldn’t help but you gotta be careful with maneuvers you don’t typically make, even if trying to be helpful / are a pilot.
> There is an algorithm for everything in aviation.
In fact there's an exception that proves that rule: there was not an algorithm to handle pitot tube ice causing an MCAS failure on the 737 MAX, because the type certificate was shared with earlier aircraft that didn't have an MCAS to fail.
And two planes crashed because pilots didn't have an algorithm to follow to tell them what was happening when their trim went crazy.
> you typically fly by a tower and have them make visual confirmation
I've been wondering for a while when I read stuff like this, why don't modern airplanes have exterior cameras that cover every surface? I watched a video recently about a flight where one of the engines literally detached and the pilots didn't know the extent of the damage until after. Why not just have cameras they can quickly pull up to check stuff like this?
Not saying this should be an alternative, but having read a lot of transcripts and video of things like this, I wonder why there aren't outside cameras that would potentially give pilots a visual indication of plane conditions outside? Is it just the cost of supporting resilient cameras?
A lot of incident reports have flight attendants or copilots leaving to try to make visual confirmation of things that it seems would be better suited if there were some actual visual feedback.
You'd gain nothing, they can already see it with their eyeballs, and they don't require anything else like faster response or a different viewpoint. You'd lose in terms of putting another hole in the aircraft and maintaining another system, and you'd still need the manual procedure in case the camera didn't work.
>and you'd still need the manual procedure in case the camera didn't work.
And presumably if the camera doesn't work as part of the pre-flight checklist for whatever reason, you're not going anywhere until it's fixed/replaced.
Why is the current time and redundancy requirement insufficient? They had plenty of time and opportunities to look at it, and they succeeded with time to spare. What is the scenario where they would run out of time, and why couldn't they land assuming that the landing gear wasn't deployed?
You'd need potentially an unrealistic number of cameras. Even if you decide on a case by case basis, you still have to weigh the risk that every component adds, and with a finite amount of money to spend on risk reduction you want to get the most bang for your buck.
It's a cost, which is why I'm trying to understand what the ROI would be.
> Good enough is good enough.
In cases like this, yes, but ... planes do crash due to mechanical failure and it's not unusual for there to be confusion from instrumentation where visual confirmation could help.
I'm sure there are at least a few camera placements that would be worthwhile.
To answer your earlier question, not to split hairs, but I disagree with "always". You can inadvertently increase risk when trying to reduce it, or unwittingly prioritize things that offer less bang for your buck. That's why risk analysis is important.
I think it's probably just considered not worthwhile enough at the moment. We'll probably get them one day. Rockets have cameras, after all.
I want to be clear I'm agreeing with you that some cameras would be useful in general. I think my only disagreements are that eyeballs are fine for this scenario, and that "more" isn't always meaningfully useful or necessarily better.
The people in the airplane ask the people on the ground to look at it for them. "They" refers collectively to pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers.
I find the YouTube ecosystem amazing. If there is a popular niche topic that has at least some amount of following, you’ll find several “competitor” channels.
VASAviation is one of the “air traffic control recording” YouTube channels but there are a few others that are equally as good.
There are at least two YouTube channels[2]
dedicated to recording the crazy boat ramps around Miami. Nothing is more entertaining than watching all the chaos around a boat ramp. Especially ones are busy as those around Miami.
There are dozens of channels publishing multi-hour first person view trips from rail conductors traveling through various scenic rail lines[3]. Some get 100’s of thousands of views per video! I wonder what fraction of that traffic watches the entire trip!
Let’s not forget Australian jetters [1]! You too can watch at least two channels worth of drain cleaning videos complete with all manner of foul disgusting water bubbling up out of random bits of pipe. Kids love this stuff!
These channels publish frequently and get a reasonable amount of watches. It’s nuts how a platform like YouTube can grow such strangely niche channels.
For context: passenger jets have a positive feedback system that indicates to the pilots whether or not the gear is in the correct position. When they operate the control to raise or lower the gear, there are corresponding indicator lights that confirm whether or not the gear has successfully moved to the commanded position. Part of standard procedure is to lower the gear, and then verify that all of the indicator lights confirm that the gear has successfully moved into the correct position. If they are not working properly, it is apparent from the indicator lights. They will then know that they will have to abort the approach and run troubleshooting checklists for that particular issue.
>>He said they were told the Federal Aviation Administration has a hold on the plane so nothing can move on it or from it.
And then they wonder why people try to take their bags during an emergency off boarding.... Because they know they will not see it for a long time if ever again.
Can you imagine leaving your laptop on a plane? In a situation like this I'd almost certainly grab that and try to take it with me. Airlines are already woefully incompetent in the best of times with your luggage, what's even the timeline for getting this stuff back? I don't buy the whole "we need it for the investigation", buddy if something in my carry-on stopped the front landing gear from opening you've got bigger issues. It's already absurd they still go on about "airplane mode" with phones/tablets. The airline industry is so horrible to deal with.
There's a lot of daylight between an oh shit emergency and normal operations. For example, the plane lands without its front gear, nobody appears to be dead, there's likely limited risk of further injury and endangerment, and you're asked to depart the plane in a slightly nonstandard way.
> you're asked to depart the plane in a slightly nonstandard way.
It was quite possibly still an evacuation, in which time is of the essence. There is no "moderate urgency" evacuation protocol, and an important part of the evacuation protocol is "LEAVE YOUR LUGGAGE" (an instruction shouted continuously by the cabin crew until everyone's out).
Would you rather the crew deliberate for a few moments on how likely it is that the plane still catches on fire vs. the inconvenience of not being able to bring baggage? And what if they misjudge it?
You'll live without your laptop for a few days; you might not survive carrying it out of a burning aircraft.
What happens if someone brought their pet? Are they supposed to leave that bag behind too? (Normally, they're kept in cloth carriers under the seat, as your "personal item".)
The investigation is not the primary reason your told the leave your stuff its to avoid delays in an evacuation. Imagine that the plane was less lucky I fire had started in the front nose cone section. Then people trying to get there bags could jeopardize the safety of the passengers in the front of the plane.
You have completely miss understood the complaint.
The complaint is about the FAA hold passenger items after the emergnecy is over while they "investigate"
The process should be
Evac -> Fire Dept clears the plane > Airline gets passengers there stuff
it should not be
Evac > Fire Dept > NTSB Looks at things > FAA Looks at things > Someone 3 years later Passengers get their things
because the FAA as the latter policy, people will be more prone to try to take their stuff, then if they knew once evacuated they would get their belongings before leaving the airport, not at some undetermined time later
>because the FAA as the latter policy, people will be more prone to try to take their stuff
Approximately nobody in an actual emergency has any idea of the details of FAA policies or is running through their logical implications, come ON.
The reason people do stupid things is they are in shock and they revert to ingrained habits and behavior because it's really hard to do any higher level thinking at that moment.
> nobody in an actual emergency has any idea of the details of FAA policies or is running through their logical implications
It certainly occurs to me now. I'm not going to pull an overhead item. But I may be more inclined to grab my laptop if it's already in the seat in front of me.
More productively: if you can honestly say that passengers will get their onboard items within 7 days of an emergency during the in-flight safety message, maybe you'll influence behavior.
It's understandable that when confronted with an irresponsible behaviour of one particular person we tend to blame that person for being irresponsible.
But the fact is that there will be a given number of irresponsible people around.
It's also irresponsible to set up rules in such a way to make it more likely that some irresponsible people will do irresponsible things. Especially when there may be other rules that could reduce the chances.
There's also "why are you not giving people their bags promptly, you assholes".
Also important medication can get left behind, as someone else mentioned. It's worth some risk to delay for some seconds in that case, where math can tell you the exact amounts.
People worry in an emergency because they don't know what's going to happen.
People do not worry more or less because of some particular 1 in a billion billion event that happened yesterday. Well, maybe yesterday, but wait a day!
On the other hand, revising rules and regulations would have real costs for you the taxpayer.
If people regularly lose access to their belongings when there's an incident, that's not a 1 in a billion billion and a good number of people will learn about it and have it affect their behavior. If that's what the regulation says, it's going to keep happening. The premise of this conversation is that this is the regular process, right?
> On the other hand, revising rules and regulations would have real costs for you the taxpayer.
I am happy to pay the cost of revising a few paragraphs so that the regulation stops screwing people over! Don't steal people's most important bags! If that needs a rules change, it won't be a complicated one. Once the plane is safe to be on, get everyone's carry-ons within a few hours.
Agreed, now that I know you can't readily get your stuff back I'd definitely think more about what I'd grab to take off in an emergency.
That said, my laptop, being sufficiently valuable, is also automatically and constantly backed up, so I'm not too worried about losing it in an emergency, just like I'm not worried about someone stealing it from me on the subway which I suspect is a more likely occurrence.
If you don't want to risk losing it in an emergency, keep it on your person during the flight. If it doesn't fit in your pockets, leave it: You might need your hands and want them empty.
The last thing everybody on the plane needs is you fetching that one important small thing from the overhead bin/under your seat/the aisle after you dropped it/...
I've been through a rough emergency landing where there was a serious concern for potential fire, and I wasn't even thinking of my government-issued laptop and phone (to use the phrasing in another comment).
This is the same augment people use to defend theft, and claim "well it is all insured so who cares"...
There is a TON of intangible loss when property is taken from the owner, does not matter if it is the FAA per policy, or a thief. Just writing a check for the value of the property does not in reality make someone whole
No, you're pulling up a straw man argument here. I'm not arguing that there isn't such a thing as intangible value.
Your original comment expressed concern about people who don't get compensated by the actual owner of their hardware; I'm saying that the airline will very likely reimburse these for the monetary value of what they've lost.
Also, property theft and air travel safety investigations are a slightly different matter in my view.
The involuntary taking of a persons property is theft, does not matter if it done by an individual or a government claiming to be acting for the "greater good"
Why do you assume a low-margin high-risk industry implements “stupid policies” just to bother you and steal your laptop?
The goal during an evacuation is to get every one off in 90seconds or less, since it’s possible there’s a fire, which has the potential to become extremely dangerous very quickly. Consider how long it takes to board a plane with luggage.
We’re all really quick to assume this is simply bureaucrats inventing rules to annoy us.
I feel like you are taking the worst possible interpretation of the parent comment.
No the airline/FAA won't steal your stuff, that's not the concern. The problem is whatever you leave on the plane will remain there until the end of the investigation, which means that you can basically write all of it off for a month. Have the rule say that the airline will be on the hook to return all belongings within 48 hours and people would likely be much more comfortable leaving their things on the place.
It's not rational to try and save "things" in an emergency situation, but neither is a company/FAA just shrugging and saying "you'll get your belongings when you'll get your belongings".
And it’s not always just laptops. It can be ID documents. Picture a college student on a trip. Maybe with couple friends. Involved in an accident, but off to the lawn safely, following all instructions.
Now their driver’s licenses and their credit cards are all in handbags around seat 34A/B. They won’t be able to rent a car, make calls, or even prove their lawful entry to the soil they’re on.
I almost always have my wallet and a phone in trousers and/or jacket pockets anyway, so this is likely never be a problem for me, but not everyone even has a pocket on their clothings.
Or if you and your partner are traveling together, you might lose your only set of house keys that way. I can't imagine getting home after a traumatic experience only to have to effectively break into your own house and then have new keys made or the locks rekeyed because you can't wait for the FAA to give you the backpack the keys were in.
OP is saying that the policy of the luggage being held by the FAA is stupid, not that preventing people from taking their luggage in an emergency is stupid. The emergency is over: the plane landed. Everyone got off the plane. Give them back their luggage.
He’s saying that because of policies like those (the FAA holding the plane), people are going to want to take their bags in an emergency situation.
And the policy certainly is stupid, as its second-order effects increase the risk that most of the passengers will die in the explosive fireball-like conflagration that could quickly follow a fire during evacuation.
I remember a fire at a hotel I was staying at in the 80s. The stairwell was completely packed with people who had every single piece of luggage with them.
Zero sympathy. Any passenger who survived such an incident should render the investigation any help they ask for. An airliner suffered a major fault ... and everyone walked away. That only happened because of decades of safety culture.
Reasons they may need the bags: Possible interference (bombs, sabotage and such). Weight and balance of the aircraft. Possible fires. Possible crash-related evidence in those bags (ie bags exposed to G/chemicals/fires etc). There are any number of scenarios where the bags might be useful to the investigation. Until those are ruled out, and ruled out properly though the process, the survivors can wait.
Just be glad the FAA isn't confiscating clothing. They can do that. In cases of fire or chemical exposure they very well can confiscate clothing that might contain useful evidence. In some circumstances even blood samples could be taken (chemical exposure etc). Got a cellphone video of the landing? It is in their power to take that too. Planes are as safe as they are because crash investigators have carte blanche. Passenger inconvenience should never trump that proven process.
I wonder how that's supposed to work with things like government issued devices or even just corporate ones which aren't supposed to leave the possession of the person they've been issued to.
I'm pretty sure "I was on a plane crash and the cabin crew yelled at me to leave my luggage behind, per safety regulations" works as an excuse in most contexts.
If your institution hasn't got protocols for this, and you got sensitive documents and your laptop, it's their problem. For the one goverment issued laptop I worked with in my life (a german SINA type system which was qualified up to the german VS-NfD (the lowest goverment security standard equal to US restricted)) getting it into a secure state was as simple as removing a smartcard
Definitely an unfortunate policy but isn’t it possible (at least in some cases) that doing so would taint the evidence of a problem that put hundreds of people at risk?
It literally is at the discretion of the investigators. See 49 CFR 831.12(b):
"§ 831.12 Access to and release of wreckage, records, mail, and cargo
(a) Only persons authorized by the NTSB IIC may be permitted access to wreckage, records, mail, or cargo.
(b) Wreckage, records, mail, and cargo in the NTSB's custody will be released when the NTSB determines it has no further need for such items. Recipients of released wreckage must sign an acknowledgement of release provided by the NTSB."
So if the NTSB decides they don't need a piece of cargo, they have the option to release it from custody.
The counter-argument is that in some circumstances, is no certainty that a fire will not break out at some arbitrary time after the plane has landed and come to a stop. And if one does break out, there is no certainty around how long there is between ignition and Shit Going Badly, so the prevailing result is to get the plane stationary, get everyone off as quickly as possible, and then assess the situation.
edit for clarity: I understand the issue you face regarding your medication being trapped on the plane and believe airlines should indeed have a duty of care to ensure you have rapid access to replacement medication at their expense, but I'm specifically addressing why they have the policy of telling people to not grab carry-on items during evacuation.
Yeah my point is, there are a whole lot of other things people tend to have in their carry-ons that are critical for their health. CPAP machines, CGMs, knee braces, allergy-specific emergency food, adult diapers, insulin, epi pens, the list goes on.
If there is actually an imminent threat to life, such as a fire, of course all of these things should be left behind. But I'm of the opinion that in no event should anyone's health be compromised in the name of a blanket policy to collect "evidence".
As a general heuristic, I’ve found that people who create policies in a specialized field of expertise tend to think through those policies a whole lot more than internet commentators like myself do.
Especially when those policies will obviously piss off a bunch of people, I can either assume those people who spend decades thinking about X don’t know what they’re doing, or I can say “hey, I probably know way less than they do.” That doesn’t mean I don’t inquire/don’t question, but I think jumping from an unattributed off-hand remark in a CBS article to “FAA is dumb and they’d have let me die on the tarmac” deserves some skepticism too.
I am genuinely curious about what exactly this policy is, why it exists, and how they handle cases like yours. I don’t think “assume the people who investigate aviation incidents aren’t aware there might be medicine onboard” is a good starting point for that type of inquiry.
It’s worth remembering that there is often a conflict of interest between the system and the individual.
An example where I’m from is train station escalators. There is an unwritten social rule that you stand on the left, and let anyone who is in a hurry walk down on the right. This benefits the individuals because if you’re in a hurry you can get through faster, and if you’re not you don’t care. But the rail company has constant announcements telling people not to do this, and to stand on both sides of the escalator, because a full escalator clears the platform much faster.
These announcements are largely ignored. No individual cares about clearing the platform, even though it is the best thing for the rail network as a whole (crowded platforms cause delays). I would also argue that the needs of the few people running to get to work are more important than improving network efficiency. But the job of the very intelligent, well informed boffins who make the announcements is to make the trains run on time, so the announcements continue.
In this case too, I think the FAA have a different set of priorities to the passengers, and they really don’t care about your medicine. Probably if there is an emergency they will send an employee back into the plane to grab your bag, as a one-off exception. If they’re too slow and you die, too bad—-should have had extra medicine in your shoe.
Policy is created to achieve institutional goals; individual needs are an afterthought at best.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
I... kind of hate this. I can understand it, but I hate it nonetheless. I don't think it can ever be a universal truth, though.
Of course, it does require discipline to know the difference between "the needs of the many" and "the needs of the corporate entity you're working for".
> These announcements are largely ignored. No individual cares about clearing the platform, even though it is the best thing for the rail network as a whole (crowded platforms cause delays).
It could be that people ignore it because the rail network is asking you to break the social contract at no benefit to you whatsoever, only an increased risk of a negative encounter (at best getting cursed out and at worst how long until someone gets shoved for blocking the walking half?)
The real win here would be for everyone who is able, to walk down the damn escalator.
>It could be that people ignore it because the rail network is asking you to break the social contract at no benefit to you whatsoever, only an increased risk of a negative encounter (at best getting cursed out and at worst how long until someone gets shoved for blocking the walking half?)
That won't happen. The OP clearly lives in Japan, probably Tokyo. That kind of thing never happens here; it's an American phenomenon, and probably various other not-so-civilized nations. Here, breaking the social contract in this way just makes people annoyed and gets you mean stares at the very worst.
Also, he's mainly talking about people walking up the escalator, not down. Many stations only have one escalator to the platform, and it's usually going up, since it's easy to walk down stairs.
Finally, it's only certain rail companies that have this policy; there's a bunch of different train operators.
> I’ve found that people who create policies in a specialized field of expertise tend to think through those policies a whole lot more than internet commentators like myself do.
I've found the opposite, actually. Specialized fields of expertise are the less able to make policy because, in general, they fail to consider the big picture. It's all tradeoffs for everything and more than just one "expert" should have a say at any policy.
It would be like letting somebody with a specialized expertise like corporate law design a product. They are an expert at not getting sued, so we should totally listen to only them, right? Could you imagine such a product? It would be nothing but legal disclaimers and would be so watered down that it is completely useless.
If you have the Flightradar24 app, you can get an alert any time an aircraft transponder squawks 7700 - Emergency. (While writing, a cesna over Oklahoma City just did)
Aviation is not safe because of luck or because aerospace engineers build infallible machines. Aviation is safe because of a culture of safety that puts the right procedures in place to mitigate problems that will eventually happen.
And when you say "Aviation is safe" you mean specifically Scheduled Aviation ie people buy tickets and go on a plane with some guys they've never met flying it. Scheduled Aviation is remarkably safe.
GA (General aviation, people who own a little plane and maybe just fly it for fun, or it's a professional expense for say a plastic surgeon and allows them to fly 300 miles home on Thursday evening after working four days in the big city) is not safe. A few hundred of these people die, not just smash up their planes or get hurt, but die, sometimes with family or friends aboard, every year. It might make the local TV news, at most. Unless they were a celebrity it won't make national news.
Commercial is more complicated because there are so many possibilities. Cargo is pretty safe, if your job is to move boxes of stuff from one big jet airport to another in a civilized country you'll likely die in bed of old age. But if you fly a police helicopter, or medevac, or you're a crop duster, or you fly custom pick up jobs, when the client wants and where they want - those jobs can go badly wrong much too easily, without you really understanding what you've got yourself into until it's too late. These people are (or at least should be) better trained than in GA, but they're also often flying more demanding missions. You may operate out of somewhere with not-so-great capabilities, on short notice, in poor weather and/or at night, and you may be expected to go places that you ordinarily wouldn't, close to buildings, close to other aircraft, even close to the ground - all of which narrows your options if things go wrong.
Military is also pretty bad as I understand it. It needn't be, but there's some sense that the job is "supposed" to be dangerous, which maybe makes sense for front line infantry, but really not for the vast majority of military pilots - way too many of them die far from any enemy, as a result of somebody screwing up, just like in GA or commercial.
GA is as safe as you want to make it for yourself. Most accidents happen because people are in a hurry to get where they're going, so they force an uncertain situation into a bad one. Police heli and medivac are motivated to fly where that would be 'unwise' because people might get hurt otherwise. It runs up the numbers. :/
I grew up next to Tamiami Airport, now Miami Executive Airport. The number of overconfident private flight incidents/crashes was wild, enough to make the neighborhood unhappy and eventually get one of the flight schools shut down. [0]
I can think of one (1) single fatal crash that wasn't due to overconfidence, ATC error, bad piloting, poor maintenance, etc. It was a horrific helicopter crash I'll never forget; we drove by on the way back from school and it was still on fire. Surreal sight.
I used to sell life insurance. "Minor" health problems would result in a slightly higher rate: higher than average blood pressure, asthma, thyroid issues, etc. Serious health problems like diabetes, cancer, smoking, and so on meant much higher premiums, especially when combined. If you were a private pilot, they wouldn't even give you insurance (most of the time) unless you agreed to be covered in all cases except flying. It's called an aviation exclusion rider.
I did some research on this a while ago and concluded that GA is about as dangerous as motorcycling, both about 5-9x more dangerous than passenger cars depending whether you count fatalities or fatal accidents per passenger-mile.
On a per-hour basis, GA is probably more dangerous, given the greater passenger-miles per hour.
I was at an airshow years ago. The whole thing was interrupted at one point because a commercial airliner in the vicinity had to make an emergency landing at the airport that the airshow was being held at due to an engine problem.
The plane landed with power to only one engine (according to the announcers), but you would have never even known there was anything wrong. It just looked like any other landing.
Interesting! Do you know if it can just survive it and then needs to be scrapped or is it possible to replace the damaged hull plate(s) and (after thorough inspection) put the plane back into service?
They certainly can repair it, but in this case, given that Delta is already in the process of retiring the Boeing 717 (and replacing it with Airbus 220), they might just decide that it's not economical to do it anymore...
The specific plane (1), N955AT, is 22.6 years old. So not young, but not completely geriatric either. Delta seems to be the only major operator of the plane type, so don't think there'd be too many buyers. Delta also seems to have a fair few in storage(2) so a fair guess would be that they'd scrap it but keep the parts that they could still use on other planes as spares.
Delta and Hawaiian are the two US operators. Hawaiian loves it, and is struggling to replace it. They use them for island-hopping. Modern airliners don't do well in this use case — modern engines have been engineered to tight tolerances to extract fuel economy, and their thermal designs rely on the cold air at cruise altitude to keep them healthy. Island hops are too short and too low for that to hold. The engines on the 717 handle it just fine, but anything else on the market will require the planes to sit on the tarmac for a significant length of time between landing and takeoff for them to cool enough, and would destroy Hawaiian's current network design, which has lots of quick flights and tight turns.
Delta announced retirement a long time ago, but has been not-so-secretly buying up as many as they can get, mostly as spares for parts to keep the fleet going because it's so useful for them. Also, the A220, its replacement, has a single engine, the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan, which has had an incredibly rough entry into service — everyone was concerned that the gearbox would be an issue, but it has been mostly rock-solid, and it's the engine core that's had dozens of issues. An airline in India has over half of its fleet grounded and filed for bankruptcy last month because P&W can't repair their engines.
The Hawaiian Islands are sort of an interesting case. Island hopping is short for jets (and a lot of people don't really like flying small props). But they're really too far apart for a ferry service between the major islands; it was tried at one point but went out of business.
I think the aversion to props is a North American thing in particular. Which doesn't help Hawaiian but for Europeans it's completely normal for small hops to be in a mid-size turbo-prop (these are still jet engines, they're just spinning a propeller instead of shoving hot gas out of the back to go faster) aircraft. Sure, it's not necessarily as comfortable as an A380, but you're not stuck there for hours.
>I think the aversion to props is a North American thing in particular.
That may be. I actually flew a prop from Maui to Big Island last time I was in Hawaii. But when I was growing up they used to be super-common even on East Coast "commuter" flights especially from smaller airports.
> The engines on the 717 handle it just fine, but anything else on the market will require the planes to sit on the tarmac for a significant length of time between landing and takeoff for them to cool enough
Is it just a matter of the brakes and tires/wheels needing to cool down or other parts need the cooldown period as well?
No, it's entirely the engines — there are a lot of moving pieces of metal that have to safely expand and contract in understood cycles. The brakes and wheels are fine with tight turns (assuming you don't have to use max braking). Southwest operates on a very similar timetable, and in fact flies a few of the more-trafficked Hawaii island hops. The difference is that Hawaiian's 717s _only_ fly island hops all day, every day. Southwest rotates its planes, so any given plane will do at max two island hops before it flies the 6 hours back to mainland and gets plenty of cooling time, e.g., LAX -> Honolulu -> Hilo -> Honolulu -> LAX.
Airplanes rarely get scrapped for parts because of incidents like this.
They have pretty extensive maintenance and repair checklists, but afaik the rate of making vessels like this airworthy is pretty high.
It really is amazing how resilient planes are, I'm pretty hooked on this YouTube series in which a guy gets given a plane that's been sitting in the open for 15 years or so on the condition he can make the thing run again. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5IMg7-HLL1Y4K06HdsDB...
> Airplanes rarely get scrapped for parts because of incidents like this. They have pretty extensive maintenance and repair checklists, ...
And yet these "extensive maintenance checklists" did not prevent such a serious malfunction. They were lucky that the weather was cooperating. In bad weather and strong winds who knows what would have happened.
Tell me you don't know what you're talking about without telling me you don't know what you're talking about.
These are machines. Machines break, no matter what the maintenance regime is. The number of cycles on these planes is awe inspiring, and while there are always squawks, the captain and FO always have the authority to ground a plane for any maintenance items they don't like.
> They were lucky that the weather was cooperating. In bad weather and strong winds who knows what would have happened.
Exactly the same thing would have happened. Maybe if it was raining or very cold we wouldn't have quite as much passenger cell phone footage from the runway. But weather had nothing to do with this, nice weather didn't make the landing any easier, and bad weather wouldn't have made it any harder. Ridiculous.
Weather had nothing to do with it. They had a warning light come on during landing that the nose gear had a safety issue, so they did another few passes, requested emergency services available at touchdown, and then did effectively a pretty normal landing (just holding the nose up a little longer than normal).
Nobody is assuming "extensive maintenance checklists" are _preventing_ serious malfunction. They do however reduce the risk for such events to occur to an acceptable level.
Not answering your question, but a bit of interesting trivia for you. Large passenger airplanes routinely take off with too much fuel to land safely. If one took off, circled the airport once, and landed, then it might actually break apart on landing because of the mass of the fuel being sloshed around as the airplane touches down. That's why planes preferably dump or burn off excess fuel before an unscheduled early landing.
There are also rules about exactly where a plane can touch down on the runway. Only some of a runway is engineered to be strong enough to bear the weight of a massive plane dropping onto the pavement. The rest is called a "displaced threshold" and is OK for parking, taxiing, and taking off.
Oooh, this is something I know a little about. At university we were tasked with building software for estimating the usable area of a runway given its configuration and obstacles.
Runways have 3-4 different defined areas, each with different properties and usable in different ways. For example, the grass at the sides is important for safety, must be cleared a certain distance back, must not rise above a certain level above the tarmac, etc, and all those rules are distinct from the rules that apply to the concrete at the ends of the runway, distinct from the rules regarding surrounding buildings and trees, and so on. The area managed as a runway can extend kilometers out on every side.
Now, if you have a plane break down at one end, or a support vehicle crash on the grass or something, you don't actually have to put the runway out of action, but you do have to re-declare the usable distance, and that's based on the location, size, and importantly height of the obstacle. You then need to plot the angle of landing/takeoff based on that height, accounting for the segment of the runway it's in, and the given runway's pre-approved angle (varies by city/terrain).
It was a fascinating project and a good example of how problems are often so much more complex and nuanced than they initially appear.
Generally, the displaced threshold is not because of the load of touching down, but because of clearance of obstacles. When landing, where you are aiming to land, and a standard glideslope, puts you over obstacles at a certain height. In some cases if you landed on the very end of he the runway, that would cause you to collide with (or have too low a margin of safety) over obstacles before the runway. The displaced threshold moves the glideslope further forward, allowing for better clearance over obstacles.
When it is impractical to locate a threshold at the beginning of the runway, it may be
necessary to apply a displaced threshold. A displaced threshold reduces runway length
available for landings in one direction. The portion of the runway prior to the displaced
threshold typically remains available for takeoffs. Depending on the circumstances
surrounding the displacement, operations from the opposite runway end may or may not
be affected. Refer to Appendix H for related information on declared distances.
Generally, a runway threshold displacement provides:
1. A means for obtaining additional RSA prior to the threshold.
2. A means for obtaining additional ROFA prior to the threshold.
3. A means for locating the RPZ to mitigate incompatible land uses.
4. A means for obstacle clearance prior to the threshold.
5. Increased arrival capacity with certain parallel runway approach procedures. See
FAA Order 7110.308, Simultaneous Dependent Approaches to Closely Spaced
Parallel Runways
Glossary:
RSA: Runway Safety Area
ROFA: Runway Object Free Area
RPZ: Runway Protection Zone
Note that all of the given reasons are for clearance of obstacles or various other mandatory safety areas based on clearance from taxiways or other runway traffic, not for durability of the runway.
From the timestamps on the tweets in the article, the incident happened around 8am and the runway was put back into service around 5pm after being inspected.
So at least in this case, it doesn't seem to have had a serious impact on the runway
What's the actual point of Youtube Sharts? It just seems like encouragement for people to film vertically and not frame the shot well.
And on the watching side you're pushed into a needlessly unfriendly UI. Like I generally just use the YT web interface and don't go out of my way to routinely yt-dlp or Newpipe, but now I might have to change that.
I don't know, I hate them, it was just the only video I actually found when searching for the flight name on YouTube. Personally I actively avoid that feature, closing the "Shorts" shelf on YouTube at any opportunity I see.
I really, really dislike short looping videos, when it starts looping I get irrationally angry and close the window. Instagram Reels is another feature I fucking detest.
I might be showing my age, I don't understand the appeal of TikTok, it just makes me stressed, haha.
I wasn't directing that at you, content is content (and FWIW that link works fine with yt-dlp). Rather I'm blaming Google for foisting this terrible UI on the world when they already had a decent one - from what I can tell there is no seeking, and scrolling up/down with arrow keys or mouse wheel stops the video and moves to the next one. (oof)
I think the "appeal" is for people stuck in dopamine loops on their phone, where the continual stimulation of looping plus the quick-next functionality are "features". Of course being older and more deliberate about technology choices and use, these are actually grating anti-features.
Sure, I meant for the people actually using it. Like if you want TikTok just continuing using TikTok, which you know is "mobile-first" and thus craptastic in a regular browser but presumably you don't care. But Google seems to have just blindly copied TikTok and enshittified their existing product to push it, when they could have integrated it into normal Youtube and made something better than both.
I don't want TikTok. Mostly because I don't want to use yet another app or account. Then there's the thing about it being from China, but to be honest, as a European it doesn't reeeally matter to me if an app is from the US or China. I did actually try TikTok during the pandemic but became too addicted due to constant WFH and boredom.
I have Instagram because I like to upload my favorite pictures. Then they started with Reels, I checked it out, liked it, so I now use it.
When I feel like Reels bore me, or that the algo seems to currently push things I don't care about[0], I switch over to YT Shorts.
There, the youtubers I'm already subscribed to upload shorter videos and I generally see different kinds of videos.
Instagram mostly shows me memes and cat videos. YT shorts is more about stand-up comedy bits, science stuff etc.
So my usage of these apps depends on how I currently feel like.
[0] Both Insta and YT sometimes start to flood me with content about annoying Entrepreneur/Online Marketing bs, Andrew Tate or far(ish)-right-wing trash or half-naked women. No amount of "not interested" seems to help, so I either switch app or do something else.
> People are free to not use airplanes if a designed for maneuver gives them PTSD.
You know, that's insensitive in terms of minimizing the suffering endured by people with bona fide PTSD, as well as dismissive. Because what do you suggest as an alternative? Drive an automobile, with higher accident rates than air travel? Walk across the street in traffic? Life is dangerous, choose your poison.
I personally appreciate aviators and all air crews for really going all-in to make flying safe and tolerable, if not enjoyable. When I think of some of the crazy train or bus rides I've had, air travel is pretty amazing in comparison, especially at a bargain price.
And I do suffer from (complex) PTSD, but thankfully such an incident as in TFA would not particularly trigger an episode. Thanks for caring.
Well, if the pilots are indeed trained on how to handle these situations, the passengers will be fine. Maybe a bit shaken up from having to evacuate on the tarmac (especially if they have a fear of flying), but they'll be fine.
based on the photos, they did pop the slides on this incident. but evacuations are often not called in these situations if there isn't a fire or something.
there's a real risk of injury from evacuating, so it needs consideration by the pilot.
Planes have to be sturdy and flexible to handle the environment they spend most of their time cruising in. This is probably nothing next to the turbulence planes are expected to shrug off while maintaining a ground level environment eight miles up for decades of service life.
I wonder if the passengers would even notice if they weren't warned to expect it. From what I understand, they don't let the front down until they're nearly stopped in these situations. You can tell when the nose drops, and it barely seems to register aside from the scraping noise and a little shaking.
Wow! Phenomenal piloting skills. In the 2nd video on the page taken by a passenger during landing, you can hear the plane balanced on the rear wheels for 12 seconds before touching down the nose. Impressive!
This is a pretty standard maneuver - it's similar to a "soft field landing" (eg grass runway). Assuming you have a long runway, you avoid braking since that would slam the nose down, and use more and more elevator to keep the nose up to as slow a speed as possible.
What's with them putting "a hold" on all of the passengers possessions?
Like, that's leaving people without their wallets (aka id, money) and so on. Sounds like they may not get it back for an unknown period of time (weeks, months?) either.
Untold best practice: Keep your phone, passport, wallet etc on your body always while on a flight. Imagine being stuck in this situation in a foreign country where they'll keep you at the airport for days waiting to figure out how to get you back home without a passport. Your renters/homeowners insurance may cover anything left on the plane that is lost and not covered by the airline.
I lost my passport while in the United Kingdom and had no other identifying documentation with me. The US embassy had me fill out a ~10 question sheet of paper and then "checked me out". 30 minutes later they said I was "good" and would have a new passport delivered to me in 48 hours.
UK/US relations are pretty good. I'm sure this situation could have been a lot worse in more unfriendly countries but I'm still shocked this solution was even possible.
Eh, the chances of ever having this impact you are incredibly remote. And yes, the “cost” of following this guideline is low, until you consider that you could have similar rules for hundreds of other incredibly rare situations, none of which will ever happen to you. Seems exhausting for no benefit. I’ll just continue to keep my stuff in my backpack under the seat, and I can grab it if needed. Or not, and I’m sure that’ll be fine too.
Also, there’s no indication that anyone who left the plane without their ID or passport is just being left in the terminal for days, making this guideline even less valuable.
I understand "don't take any bags as we deplane down the emergency slide", but the hold is weird. I'd probably get arrested in the process of being like "No the bag with my important possessions I keep next to me on purpose is coming with me"
They were probably rushed off due to being unsure about fire hazards, and people digging through carryons for wallets and stuff would probably slow that down a lot, considering how long a normal deplaning takes.
As soon as they said something was wrong I’d be working to get any important work off my laptop and onto my phone or any other alternative storage I could think of. Also, wallet/passport/keys etc come out of my backpack and into my
pockets.
You don't? Where do you keep your driver's license, credit cards, etc? I don't have a full bifold/trifold, but do have a small card holder for IDs and CCs.
And then there's the passport and any other important documentation. That stuff is pretty much always in either my carry-on or a jacket pocket (which is usually also in the overhead).
Yeah, keeping my cell on my person probably avoids 80%-90% of the annoyance, but you aren't getting through customs or security without a physical ID in most places.
Not the parent poster, but I carry that stuff in a pocket of the backpack I take around pretty much everywhere. On planes it's a carry-on. I certainly wouldn't be happy losing it in an emergency, but oh well, not really something I optimize for.
> You guys have wallets? Seems like the only possession you’d really need to do anything useful is your phone.
I wouldn't want to be stuck away from home on a flight without some physical ID. Also don't want to completely rely on Apple Pay to buy anything (not to mention that some stores still don't take Apple Pay).
First of all, contrary to popular belief you don’t need physical ID at airports, you can go through another process to have your identity verified, it takes longer but it’s trivial.
Second, any place that doesnt take Apple Pay is not a place you should do business at. Even lowly kiosks and vending machines accept Apple Pay now. The places that are NOT accepting Apple Pay are a red flag, they are doing something nefarious by holding onto the old system of credit card processing (there are benefits and incentives to use contact less payments and places that refuse are actively missing out for a reason, there is literally no good reason to not take Apple Pay).
> In the event you arrive at the airport without valid identification, because it is lost or at home, you may still be allowed to fly. The TSA officer may ask you to complete an identity verification process which includes collecting information such as your name, current address, and other personal information to confirm your identity. If your identity is confirmed, you will be allowed to enter the screening checkpoint. You will be subject to additional screening, to include a patdown and screening of carry-on property.
With a standard USB charger that you can find anywhere, because what kind of ridiculous consumer-hostile company would use a non-standard charging port oh wait.
Non-USA resident here. Can someone explain all the four-letter news station names to me? Why not brand them with something more memorable / locally nuanced?
The FCC licenses are given with those station identifying letters and there’s a requirement to broadcast the station ID periodically. Many stations have an additional brand (often <affiliate city> “Fox Boston”), but they still have to use the FCC ID as well.
One of my favorite station IDs was an independent local analog UHF channel 56 with call letters WLVI. I heard those letters for years before I realized it was 56 in Roman numerals.
Station ID is every hour. Also you have to say it in a very specific format: Call letters, city; or call letters, frequency, city. No additional words in between: “WKRP in Cincinnati” would be invalid.
TV stations are allowed to do it visually. When I was young it was common to see it as a full screen ID in between shows (often with a quick weather report, “time and temperature”). Later most stations I saw quit that and just put it as a bug at the bottom of the screen over top of the show.
Including your frequency is especially effective for customer retention - I still remember the MW frequency of one of my favorite radio stations from my youth because it was included in the name, even though I listened to it via satellite ("Virgin 1215" - apparently it's called Absolute Radio now, and medium wave transmissions were discontinued on 20 January 2023: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_Radio).
Fun fact. My college radio station had the station ID WTBS (technology broadcasting system or something like that). When Ted Turner was spearheading one of the fairly early major cable TV stations, he bought the ID for what I imagine was a lot of money for a college radio station for the Turner Broadcasting System or something similar.
My absolute favorite is KNOW -- the news channel of the Minnesota Public Radio network. I think it's just about as perfect as you can get for a news channel.
Rochester NY has WXXI for a PBS station on channel 21. It is also curiously reused as the call sign on local AM and FM NPR radio stations. For whatever reason that is allowed.
The FCC generally allows stations that share ownership to use the same callsign for TV, FM, and AM. Not always in the same area either; KCBS-AM is in San Francisco, while KCBS-FM and KCBS-TV are in Los Angeles. Additionally, stations are allowed to keep their call sign when ownership changes, so even though KCBS-FM and AM are no longer owned by the owners of KCBS-FM, they have chosen to keep the same call signs.
I knew this was the general rule, but also knew about KDKA-Pittsburgh (a very old station, east of the Mississippi). In looking into why that one got a K, I found this that might be interesting to people reading this far down this subthread: https://archive.is/HpUc3
For a W west of the Mississippi a good example is WACO in Waco, Texas, which is also one of only 3 stations whose callsign is the name of their city. (The other two are WARE in Ware, Massachusetts, and WISE in Wise, Virginia).
Can confirm in New Orleans WYLD has their transmitter in Algiers on the west side of the river and I’m sure that situation applies to other stations can’t recall any Ks around here
Well they are memorable for the people that live in the area—at least that was the case when broadcast TV/radio was important. There really wasn't a need for them to be decipherable to outsiders since historically they would be outside of the broadcast range.
It's cool how they wait as long as they can before gently placing the nose on the runway. So much smoother and quieter than I anticipated. Delta owes these pilots an off-duty drink!
You are technically correct about the BAC, but they definitely cannot have one while "on duty", there's an 8 hour limit between your last drink and flying and some airlines have longer time windows by policy
Those Delta 717s (which are actually just rebadged MD-95s) are the oldest fleet of airframes in use today on US domestic routes, having been acquired from the AirTran bankruptcy nearly 20 years ago. I suspect this will be the beginning of the end for them, as they are out of production for years now.
As an immediate stop gap, I think the FAA should issue an AD for the 717/MD-80 family that should rough front gear noises, underpowered response, or rolling sluggishness occur, ground crews should inspect the nose gear's NLG spray deflector for damage prior to any takeoff. For anyone unfamiliar, the deflector is thing that trails behind the nose wheel that limits FOD and water ingestion into MD-80's tail-mounted engines. Wing-mounted engines generally don't have this problem unless they're located near wing roots.
> NTSB investigating the runway landing of a Boeing 712 without the nose gear extended at Charlotte/Douglas International airport in Charlotte, North Carolina.
It's difficult to trust a news source that can't properly identify an airframe model in an article about an airplane crash. As far as I can as a tell, Boeing has never produced a model 712, it appears what the plane in question is some variant of the 717[1] but that's only a guess as I'm not an expert in the field.
Thank you for the clarification. I should have searched around a bit more for an explanation before complaining about it here.
As soon as I have a little free time I'll do my best to update the relevant Wikipedia pages in hopes fewer people are confused by the nomenclature in the future.
This is kind of patronizing to the pilots. There’s nothing particularly difficult about what they did, which has been practiced many times. They ran their checklists, and then landed the plane, and they did it well, just like any other qualified pilot should have. People need to stop conflating basic competence with heroics.
Age is always a factor in mechanical failure, but I’m sure this failure will be inspected in detail to try and avoid it again in the future
I would imagine simulator practice is a good amount different from executing the real thing when your adrenaline is kicking in and they have a full plane. They are professionals that executed a complex task gracefully to minimize the terror that their passengers experienced (they balanced on the back wheels for a long time to bleed off speed and the landing seemed more graceful than many with all landing gear that I've had). Why not give them some props instead of taking them for granted? Maybe the pilots weren't too worried, but I'm sure the passengers must have been pretty terrified.
Just to nitpick, this landing technique is something every pilot has to demonstrate to an FAA designated examiner to get their first pilot certificate (or, the private pilot license). So it's kind of like saying "Wow, you did the thing every pilot has to do!". I get what you're saying though - there's an emotional difference between doing this when everything is fine and when you have a real emergency.
I suspected it wasn’t required for every pilot since most initially licensed pilots will train on airplanes that don’t have retractable landing gears in the first place.
But I guess the technique isn’t much different than if your nose tire blew, which might be included in all training?
Looks like flying with a retractable landing gear is a separate “complex aircraft endorsement” that “has no corresponding check ride or minimum number of flight or ground hours that must be completed.“
(Though that’s what the regs say, the schools that provide it do have those)
The technique is the soft-field landing technique, required for every pilot[1]. It's for landing on soft surfaces such as a grass strip. You must land with the mains first and keep the nose wheel held off of the ground for as long as possible, gently setting it down. You don't need a complex aircraft for this.
This is the same technique the delta pilot used, and by other pilots that had an abnormal nose-wheel deployment.
They seemed to have timed placing the nose down better than I anticipated. It speaks to their experience how gently they were able to handle the situation.
There’s a difference between practicing for a situation and being able to perform under the pressure and stress of when it actually occurs and the consequences of failure are dire
This wouldn't be a hull-loss or a major rebuild? I'd think the runway is keeping some of the aluminum from the nose for itself. Plus that's a lot of vibration near sensitive radome.
I have seen (on one of the YouTube ATC channels) a comercial jet (747, IIRC) that DID lose one of its main landing gear on take-off. Another pilot (in another jet) saw the wheel bounce across the runway.
That plane continued on its way and landed normally. It was just one wheel of a four-wheel truck/assembly (of which a 747 has 4 sets).
These planes all come with handbooks that the manufacturer provides for anomalous situations, like when some landing gear don't work. Once the flight crew run through the checklists in the handbooks for the problem, that's pretty much it. In certain cases and time permitting, the crew might also be in contact with their airline's maintenance/engineering staff in case there's something else that might be done. But once those options are exhausted there's no point in staying in the air, and these checklists can generally be done fairly quickly by a trained crew.
In combination with what mannykannot replied to you, that doesn't sound particularly rushed to me (not that I'm an expert, but it would be surprising if they'd needed an hour for such a relatively common type of incident).
They run their checklists and once all options have been exhausted to rectify the situation, what else should they do other than land? Also, they only had 30 minutes of fuel remaining.
If you suspect you're gonna turn into a hunk of bent metal sliding down the runway, I'd rather there only be a couple of gallons of fuel left, rather than a couple of hundred gallons.
In the scale of amounts of fuel aircraft carry, 30 minutes of fuel is "a couple of gallons". You don't want enough to overstress the airframe or fuel a massive conflagration if the tanks are compromised, but you also don't want so little that you've got no buffer in case something else goes wrong, and 30 minutes at cruise (or at the near-idle power settings used on approach, it isn't clear here) is a lot less at takeoff/go-around power.
Everything is done via checklists. You don't just "try a few more times" unless there's some indication that you should. They only had 30 minutes of fuel left, and if they had an unrelated go-around and ran out of fuel while setting up for another landing, everyone dies.
Once you've run all the relevant checklists and ARFF is in position, you land the plane.
What makes you say they didn't land on the rear landing gear first? Part of the normal landing is -- AIUI, IANAPilot -- to flare, that is to increase the angle of attack of the aircraft (pull up the nose, increase drag) in order to reduce forward speed; this also puts the rear gear closest to the runway, the rear gear being bilateral means this spreads the load.
In fact, I've just looked at a video on YouTube "AIRLIVE" [0] and you can see the shadow of the nose off the ground when the plane shakes (at 0:07s) indicating the rear gear has made contact. I think the nose contacts at 0:13, so gently it's amazing.
I don't know what model of plane this is, but I was watching a Real Engineering video on the Boeing 787. He said that some planes have a third engine for generating electricity (the APU) and the exhaust for that is at the tip of the tail.
Maybe there are concerns about potentially damaging the APU?
Most commercial planes have APUs (That's the loud sound you hear/exhaust you smell from the jet bridge) but a tail strike would hit closer to underneath the back seats of the plane than the middle of the tail like that. The only concern in emergency situations like this is getting every passenger safely on land. Not their bags, not every component of the airplane. Both of those are more easily resolvable via insurance than lost passenger lives.
Speculating: the nose is gonna come down anyway (as sokoloff said, CoG is ahead of the main landing gear), so it's safer for the front to impact from as little height as possible. If you hit tail-first and keep the nose up you're setting yourself up for a hefty impact when the front crashes down. Better to scrape from the start.
Once the mains touch down you keep the nose off as long as possible for minimal energy at impact. It will float down naturally and you don't really have any control over the manner in which it makes contact as long as you have full back pressure on the yoke. There's not really any way to affecting the height at which it starts coming down.
In 15-20 years we will have helper drone(s) incorporated in each aircraft that can fly off and provide an outside scan of the craft, perhaps even perform minor repairs.
Have you dealt with the FAA before? It’s been a decade long battle to change certification standards for GA aircraft that contain multiple redundant solid state instruments over mechanically driven gyros. Maybe in 100 years.
Edit:
Answer: Yes
... the crew initiated a go around due to a unsafe nose gear indication, climbed to 4000 feet and entered a hold to work the checklists. After working the checklists the crew declared emergency and requested emergency services on stand by. The aircraft performed a low approach to runway 36L, positioned for another approach to runway 36L and landed without nose gear extended at 08:54L (12:54Z) about 12 minutes after the second go around and about 30 minutes after the first go around.