I saw this live, and the only thing I could think of is 'man, is this lady just dense?' She was asking the most basic questions, like 'does this happen?' It is on tape, idiot. Or another question along the lines of 'how does an aircraft bounce like that? Well, Miss Lady, have you ever driven a car over a speed bump? Planes have suspension systems too!

Looking at it, as someone that took a few hours of basic Cessna 152 flight class 15 years ago, I could generate a handful of reasonable theories as to how this happened.
1-the pilot came down on too steep of a glide slope.
2-there was a brief massive tail wind which caused a rapid loss of lift, thereby increasing decent uncontrollably.
3-flaps were not properly extended and there was less ground-effect than what was expected by the pilots (this is a stretch)
4-horizontal stabilizer was not functioning properly, which hindered a proper flair during descent.

Of course, it will take a full inquiry to determine root causes, but hearing the stupidity she was demonstrating, I was on the edge of my chair waiting for her to ask whether this could have been a terrorist attack. This reporter was asking the most intellect-free questions imaginable. Yes, she is a pretty lady, but I'd rather get journalism than some bobble-head who doesn't understand the basic operations of an airplane.

In addition, I found it to be somewhat tasteless that they showed the plane just sitting there burning (no news value) while it is known that there were crew members inside.

I’ve loved aircraft all my life, and it is tragic to see accidents like this happen. I am just disturbed that cable news networks tend to treat these incidents as a shock spectacle, rolling the same 15 second clips endlessly while repeating the same pitiful deer-in-headlights questions to experienced pilots. It should be looked upon as an embarrassment to true journalism.

Check out FedEx MD-11 crash in late 1990's at Newark Airport. Same thing, except that the plane didn't turn over on one side, but did end over end cartwheel. Landing was under difficult winds maybe similar to Japan. In that case there were two pilots and four passengers. Plane wound up upside down. Everyone popped thier seatbelts and kicked out a cockpit window. The firefighters wanted to know who they were and how they got that close to the aircraft. At first no one believed that they rode the thing down without any injuries except minor scratches. Lucky guys. I was told by some folks in the know that the MD-11 had some crosswind landing stability problems. Looks like maybe they were right. By the way, FedEx does fly an MD-10 version. It is a re-configured/rebuilt DC-10 with a "glass" cockpit. Type accepted by the FAA and redesignated MD-10.

Hey Neal,
You are a pilot. what is your thought about what you see on the video?

Prayers to the families..