If you were investigating a runway overrun mishap—to discover precisely what led to the accident for the sole purpose of helping other pilots avoid similar events in the future—where would you focus your attention? What might be the deciding factor? What one thing would have broken the accident chain and prevented the crash?
Any number of possibilities might come to mind: braking action, landing hot (too fast), landing long (touching down farther along the runway than optimal), even factors like pilot fatigue. In the final analysis, the one critical factor in almost all runway overruns is the aircraft was not in the slot in the seconds before touchdown.
