Stinks of bad crew resource management and ATC which is why the ATC and airline for raided by SK officials.
If there were significant winds it would have compounded those factors.
It is curious that the gear was retracted. I can only think that this was due to some kind of system failure? Perhaps that same failure explains the decision to double back instead of going around?
Lots of questions, hopefully there will be answers.
Still, the structure does not seem to meet the standard for frangibility that is indicated for objects in the approach path within 300m, although it’s not like it was at the very end of the runway.
Runway over/undershoots are actually quite common, and the building of a nonfrangible structure on an otherwise safe skid zone is a significant error in design principles that is not common or conformal to industry standards.
If those antennas had been placed on property designed towers instead of a concrete bunker, the passengers and crew very well may have walked away without a scratch, despite any errors on the part of the crew or procedures of the airline.
That's why EASA says put the plane down if there’s a strike on approach. Ryanair 4102 is a good example of a close one there as a reference.
ETA: The primary footage is hard to find now that the topic is so saturated, but there is a specific clip from a close vantage where it is highly visible. I'll include a link if I can find it.
Landing gear has a manual gravity release by the first officer that doesn't require the hydraulics. (But does take some time.)
Ground effect was certainly involved (why they glided so far before touching down) but the bigger factor was their high speed, lack of flaps, and lack of gear.
You have to reach all the way back to do it, difficult to do with all the other shit going on.
"TransAsia Pilot Shut Off Wrong Engine Moments Before Crash" (2015)
Taiwan aviation officials on Tuesday released a detailed report of how the pilot mistakenly shut off the plane's only working engine after the other lost power. "Wow, pulled back the wrong side throttle," the captain said shortly before crashing.
<https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonwells/transasia-pi...>
I seem to recall a Mentour Pilot episode (YouTube channel) describing either that or a similar incident.
Point being that when things start going very wrong you've got to actively think to prevent making them worse.
That said, I have seen some absolutely horrendous responses to emergencies go from kinda bad to massive destruction of property, so much so that unless one has trained for the specific emergency, the best course of action is to assess way more than you think you need. And we often have more time than we think, and we make the the right decisions, they are the right decisions because they give us more time.
People often have an idea that ATC actually controls what happens. They just give advisory guidance to pilots, who ultimately decide what to do. A clearance to land or the lack of one does not absolve the pilots from making their own judgments and decisions about how to conduct the navigation of the aircraft, and where and when to land.
Usually, it’s a bad idea to not follow ATC guidance, but in the case of emergencies especially, pilots call the shots.
But the tower at an airport, their job is to supply information, and once you call mayday you’re in total control - you can ask them to do whatever you think will help you save the flight, including (and usually automatically done) diverting all other flights, clearing all runways, and cancelling any departures pending until the issue is resolved.
Pilots have to be trained to ignore ATC as necessary, because planes have crashed because of trying to be polite to requests (and not declaring mayday or pan pan).