From a Wall Street Journal article:
>Among the safeguards on the 737-800 is a system that would allow the pilots to let gravity lower the landing gear if other systems failed, said [Jeff Guzzetti, a former senior accident investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration], who isn’t involved in the accident investigation. He said he wondered whether the crew mistakenly tried to land without the plane’s landing gear down, realized the mistake and attempted a “go-around” to redo the landing. That could explain why the plane was traveling so fast and so far down the runway, he said.
>“If there was a failure there, why not continue to fly, burn off fuel so you don’t have a lot of fuel on board?” Guzzetti said. “You call emergency rescue crews to be ready for you. I don’t see any of that there.”
>The Muan International Airport is also surrounded by various bodies of water, meaning the pilots could have opted for a safer sea landing, said Hiroshi Sugie, a former Japan Airlines pilot who has written books about aviation safety.
>The pilots appear to have landed in the most dangerous way, Sugie said. “There are just too many errors here,” he said. “A belly landing isn’t something you rush into doing.”
