Here is my theory:
1. Plane comes in for 1st landing attempt
2. Landing gear extends down but does not fully lock
3. Pilots have no idea that gear is faulty
4. When plane lands, gear is unstable, engines hit ground
5. When engine hits ground, pylon loosens spilling fuel
5. Black skid marks on engines caused by ground contact
6. Pilot immediately goes around
7. Plane goes around for 2nd landing attempt
8. Plane is circles in air for 7 minutes between landings
9. During these 7 minutes, fuel is rapidly leaking out
10. Plane runs out of fuel and stalls, crashes
There are some big mysteries here. Certain things do not add up:
1. How can it be possible for pilots to not know gear was not fully locked? In ATC tapes you can hear alarm was going off in cockpit so pilots probably knew gear was faulty at some point during at least one of the landing attempts. Only explanation for alarm going off in cockpit which is heard on ATC tape and for the pilots to not know about landing gear problem is that the alarm we hear on the tape is actually not the gear alarm but some other alarm, maybe the engines failed first? Could plausibly explain why gear looked down in good position on CCTV, but does not explain why pilots talked to ATC about gear problems or how plane was able to go around or do an aborted landing if engines failed. Can someone check if alarm was heard first or if pilot told ATC about gear problems before alarms were heard on tape?
2. Which came first, landing gear problem or engine problem?
3. I doubt any bird strike happened because pilot would have mentioned it on ATC tape. Usually pilot will tell ATC what the problem is if they know. If they didn't tell ATC what the problem was, they probably didn't know what it was themselves. They said they had gear issues but nothing about birds, so bird strike theory is out.
4. Ram Air Turbine was deployed in picture before landing so whatever happened was not sudden, pilots knew they had a major problem before they were landing.
5. On ATC, it sounds like pilots requested a belly landing. If this was during 1st landing attempt, then it means they DID know gear might fail before 1st landing. This would explain why only engines have black marks and not the rest of the belly. If they expected a gear failure before landing, they would have been ready to go around as soon as the gear failed to avoid causing major damage.
6. The theory that gear was stuck and would not come down is totally false because we can see it was down in the video. It is possible that it was down and NOT locked which can cause plane to hit the ground and cause minor skid marks but this is not the same thing as it being stuck completely which results in a belly landing and much more severe damage than we see in the pic taken while plane was circling. There are no major scratches besides engines that would indicate a belly landing.
7. I do not think pilots were surprised that gear failed, there must have been some indication of this in cockpit so they would've expected or it, or at least known something was off.
8. Interesting to note that flaps and slats were not deployed in CCTV video and plane has very high angle of attack. Flaps are used during landing to decrease speed and decrease altitude. The fact that plane did not have flaps and slats deployed in CCTV video meant that the pilot consciously tried to do anything possible to increase altitude after both engines shut down. High angle of attack indicates that the plane was almost certainly gliding, because the angle would have been much shallower if engines had power. Pilot was fighting until last moment to do anything to increase altitude by retracting flaps so he could glide farther past residential area but didn't make it.
9. The theory about fuel running out is possible but one big problem with this theory is that huge fireball went up after it crashed, a plane that has run out of fuel will not make a fireball like that because you need fuel to combust.
So there is basically this triangle of factors that do not add up.
If plane was gliding on CCTV video, it ran out of fuel, but fireball on impact means that it did not run out of fuel. So if it did have fuel, why was it gliding??? If it ran out of fuel, why was there a fireball????
Other problems:
If both engines failed, then plane ran out of fuel, but if plane didn't run out of fuel, then why did both engines fail? In my opinion, it's not possible for plane to have run out fuel because they have extra reserves in case of go around and 1 go around is not enough to use all of it. The only other explanation is that fuel tank was ruptured during botched landing but this is extremely unlikely. Only other thing that can cause dual engine failure is dual bird strike but pilots would have told ATC if this was the case.
Big mystery is did landing gear fail first or did engines fail first?
1. If landing gear failed first, pilots would have known before landing and it would explain skid marks on engine and aborted landing. But landing gear failure does not explain why fuel ran out causing the gliding just before crash seen on CCTV since fuel running out is the only reason both engines can shut down, but landing gear would not cause problems with engine.
2. The alternate theory is that both engines failed first. This would explain the landing gear problems, because both engines failing would cause a total loss of hydraulic power which is exactly the kind of problem that would cause landing gear issues like gear not locking. Loss of both engines would cause alarms to go off in cockpit heard on ATC tape but gear problems could also have caused similar alarms. The problem with this theory is that if engines failed, the plane would not have had enough power to go around and would only have 1 landing attempt. So the engines would have failed after the landing gear problems and aborted landing which means that landing gear problems came first. The other problem with this theory is what could cause both engines to fail before landing gear if its not bird strike or fuel running out?
It is completely circular logic, landing gear failure needs engine failure first to cause hydraulic problems, but engine failure needs gear failure to somehow cause fuel to run out.
Mystery grows even bigger because if aborted landing damaged engines when it hit the ground, why did plane fly perfectly for 7 minutes in the air, and then suddenly both engines fail at same moment. If engine got damaged when it hit the ground during aborted landing, engine problems would have happened on runway. So this indicates fuel ran out, but we already know that didn't happen because fireball on impact cannot happen without combustible fuel.
So then what caused it? Did engines fail first or did gear fail first? And did fuel run out?
I think you can see where my frustration is coming from. Things are not adding up.
