This is how it is properly done.
I wonder why the gear up landing?
- because of fear they would “dig up” in the soft ground (and unbalance the plane, rip off stuff, etc)
- plane SOP (for same reason?)
- because they needed to strech the glide
- forgot?
Maybe lost hydraulic pressure? Maybe didn’t want to increase their descend rate by introducing additional drag? Maybe forgot? 750 feet is nothing. There is no time for SOP or checklists. The tall corn must have helped too.
Also I don’t completely buy the story that the gear was retracted. The airplane sits too high in the pictures and also in the videos you can’t hear the usual gear retraction sounds.
Yes, I forgot:
- couldn’t deploy (possibly the most likely option)
- deployed, but gear had no time to get out.
According to the above article they landed a mere kilometer from the airport (doesn’t say “threshold” though), so given the A321s speed I think it is credible to imagine they didn’t have enough time to retract and focused on the landing itself.
Edit: only now read the above a herald link, which mentions “2.77 nm past the runway” …
.. in any case, a good landing, since everyone walked away out of it.
Incredible job by the pilots. The startle effect is huge. Amazing they pulled this of so smoothly in a matter of seconds.
Interesting to note that it’s likely that the pilot probably did everything he had to do correctly, despite likely coming from what looks like to me what is often the ATPL sausage factory (I am generally of the view that having tons of flying experience in small planes probably does not as much as is credited in getting the right flying skills for liners):
From CNN
Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported that the 41-year-old pilot, Damir Yusupov, has clocked up more than 3,000 flight hours, citing Ural Airlines’ press service.
Yusupov graduated with honors in 2013 from St. Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation and was hired by the company immediately after graduating, RIA-Novosti said.
EDIT: It’s also possible the pilot would have messed up quite a bit but the enveloppe protection “saved” it, but I imagine it doen’t really work that close to the ground. Our resident “bus drivers” might know something about it.
… and since it’s a russian “vehicle”, when are we going to see the dashcam footage 
