If you're high and have energy to spare, you can fly faster than best glide, enter the
landing flare, and bleed off energy in the flare for a soft touchdown.
During the
landing flare, he saw his propeller strike something, but could not see the airplane that was directly beneath him.
This, of course, can lead to a better
landing flare and hopefully, a smoother touchdown.
This maneuver would be followed by a 50-degree dogleg turn to line up with the runway just prior to landing, as well as a final
landing flare at 25 feet.
He spotted what appeared to be the destination airport and maneuvered for an approach but realized in the
landing flare he was not at the airport.
Certainly not to the airline pilots I talk to, at least the older ones who note that the majority of young first officers prefer to engage the autopilot at about 200 feet and turn it off as shortly before the
landing flare as possible.
The NTSB already has determined a probable cause: "The pilot's failure to maintain an appropriate descent rate during the
landing flare in gusty crosswind conditions, which resulted in a hard landing, left main landing gear collapse and runway excursion."
In addition, save for the brief time the nose is high during the final portion of the
landing flare and first part of the rollout, she can see the runway.
The approach phase is defined as from the point of VFR pattern entry, or 1000 feet above the runway elevation, to the beginning of the
landing flare. If you're operating IFR, it's from the initial approach fix to the
landing flare.
More important, there's less tendency to over pitch or over roll in the
landing flare; the airplane self damps a little.
And some airplanes like the Cessna 182 will have limited pitch authority with a forward CG, making the
landing flare more problematic than it has to be.
It's arguable whether this is better in the
landing flare. To properly gauge height, you should be looking down the runway, not out the side windows at close-in objects.