Flight simulator recreates conditions from night plane skid off runway at NAS Jax

Scares in the air are nothing new for Capt. Wayne Ziskal.

Action News Jax Ben Becker took a ride with the Jacksonville University Associate Professor of Aviation who has 35 years of commercial and military flying experience in his flight simulator.

Both tried to duplicate what the pilots may have dealt with during the landing of the Boeing 737 that ended up in the St. Johns River.

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The National Transportation Safety Board said the ground speed at touchdown was 178 knots.

“Holy mackerel,” Ziscal said. “They were coming in hot.”

When you add in a 15-knot tailwind, that works out to about 205 mph.

“Is that a controlled approach,” asked Becker.

“No. It’s way too fast for a situation like that,” Ziskal said.

Ziskal believes the pilot was coming in fast because of the weather and wanted to “plant” the plane so it would not use too much of the approximately 8,000 foot runway, but it backfired.

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“When you are going at this kind of speed on final approach with this kind of tailwind, you are going to eat up a great deal of runway,” Ziskal said.

The NTSB also noted in the plane's maintenance log that the left thrust reverser didn’t work but Ziskal said that is only one piece of the puzzle.

“We look at thrust reversers in the airline business as gravy in stopping,” added Ziskal.

Cox Media Group