[singpilot]

Was a, by now, infamous incident.

Maintenance (the start of a lot of accidents) had finished working on the plane after having it up on jack stands. One of the ways of 'fooling' the ground sensing system in the airplane into believing it is on the ground (even when up on jack stands) is to cover up the squat switches with popsicle sticks. The popsicle sticks didn't get removed, or spotted by the QC guy, or the pilots on their 'preflight'.

On short final, the throttles were closed to idle, and the airplane (believing it was on the ground, because of the popsicle sticks) extended the ground spoilers, planting the airplane onto the ground as designed.

Unfortunately, the ground was 50 feet south. 45 tons of airplane falling from 50 feet. No need to secure the gear down on that landing, it was driven up thru the wing. Brakes were unecceasry on that rollout.

Those two guys now are driving a semi-truck between Chicago and Philly. And are probably overqualified for that job too. The mechanics are now undoubtedly in a supervisorial position somewhere.