This sort of thing interests me. This one is just fascinating because of the plane involved, the crew, the airline, and the location. Each could be considered the best there is in commercial air travel.

The ground crew said there was, "considerable fuel," leaking from the airplane so it doesn't appear to have been starved for fuel and, even if it was, why were there no low-fuel warnings?

This BBC report takes into consideration a number of possible causes and they too consider birds, wind shear, and controller error. An interesting point was that while Rolls Royce is taking part in the investigation, there is no expectation of the engines being the problem, but the engine controls. The pilot was not at the controls during descent, the copilot was, but that the autopilot was actually controlling the plane during landing.

When crashes like this happen right at an airport and everyone (thankfully) survives, the opportunities for examination are just about perfect. I'm very interested to see what the preliminary and final reports will conclude.

Some plane crashes just interest me more than others. I saw TWA 800 happen on the news as the first reports came in and I was convinced, somehow, that it wasn't supposed to have happened. I just kept thinking, 'This is wrong. That plane wasn't supposed to go down.' Not that any are, but the feeling that an outside force had caused the crash was one I couldn't shake. Turns out the controversy from that crash still has not been settled and I truly believe something beyond the failure of any of the plane's parts was the cause.

I don't get that feeling with this crash but I still find this one fascinating given its oddity.

Oh and I have no expertise in this area beyond being an occasional passenger. My grandfather was the flier in the family, receiving his pilot's license from Orville Wright! He was also a pioneer glider and helped develop the military's glider program. On his 92nd birthday my mom took him to an airport to fly with a modern glider and he was just the happiest man in the world. The pilot let him take a few turns at the controls and it brought back a world of memories that just fascinated the whole airport crew.

I miss him.