Originally Posted by
javabytes
Yes, they clearly won their bet. But if the plane hadn't been able to get back out, it would have resulted in significant damage to the plane, perhaps even totaled it. The multimillion dollar cost of this, when weighed against operating a single round trip flight... gutsy.
I wonder how high up in the DL organization someone made the decision to fly the flight. Of course, the pilots would need to be willing to go, but someone probably approved it at a high level given the stakes (risk).