Originally posted by wingnut
No doubt it was an impressive save, but a better pilot would never have botched the approach in the first place.
Still, gusts are unpredictable. They only have the best of the best flying the big jets.
The plane was going incredibly slow. I believe those stall at roughly 100mph. If it was not for ground effect (the increasing of lift near the ground) it appears it would have stalled.
Since we're on the subject of airliners and good saves, here's a .mov of a DC-8 in a gust at landing. The pilots did an excellent job keeping the plane from becoming a fireball. Everything was by the book and flawless.
http://www.ipapilot.org/wind_plane_23_2.mov