Originally Posted by
GFrye
Indeed.
An aircraft sliding through the snow would have a much wider footprint. The only way an aircraft could make a path like that would be if only the nose gear dragged through the snow for ~150 feet, and then the aircraft came to a complete stop in less than 2 feet...
That looks like a tracks from a person walking in snow.
Those are some pretty big tracks. I think if we had an image that went down further it may be easier to make things out. The path that is there is pretty clearly the same width of the plane. (Central maine had a nasty snow storm that day, northern Maine had several and there is still a significant amount of snow there.) it is plausible that the tracks is what the aircraft had made after a few bounces.
I am surprised that if conditions were that bad (it was snowing pretty hard that day and VERY windy) that they didn't head to Bangor or Portland where it may have been better. (Not that Bangor was much better, there were a lot of cancellations that day.)