Originally Posted by
robertkg
Exactly - and I want to know why!!!! There has to be a good reason (or many good ones?), grounded (no pun intended) in physics I would have thought, why the runway would be preferred to the grass should the captain have a choice during the emergency landing.
There are good reasons, grounded in physics. The pilot knows that the runway is flat, smooth, and stressed to handle the weight of his aircraft, wheels down or wheels up. The area short of the runway? A crap shoot! No standards exist for that area and who knows what could happen. Suppose you hit a ditch w/ that kind of kinetic energy: Mass = 200+ Kg, Velocity = ~150 Kts? You figure it out.
And, the stopping distance for a wheels-up landing is about the same as a normal wheels-down landing. Go look at some accident reports for inadvertant wheels-up landings and see for yourself.
If you want to see what bad things can happen in an off-runway wheels down landing, go look up the DFW L-1011 crash back in the '80's.