The report I saw on national news said that the wind was gusting over 100mph and it was a strong sidewind. I think that last "crab" was do to weather vane effect rather than intentional. It looked to me that when he corrected and kicked it around straight that the wind got under the right wing and lifted it. When I was first learning to fly, my trainer would do that trick a lot. I lost track of the times it got flipped on it's back just taxing out to the center line when a gust got under the wing. The trainer is easilly repaired, but that plane was as close to a major accident as you can get and still fly away.

I also saw on the first news report that the plane was repaired and in service again. This was something like 18 hours from the incident. Either the wing tip didn't really touch down as it appears in the photo and video, or those are some really tough wings.

Isn't this the same type of aircraft that lost the vertical and crashed in Long Island just after 9-11? That was attributed to wake turblance from jumbo just ahead. I can't imagine a worse whipping than the one in the video showed.

Don