Exclusive: New video in Southwest hard landing

NEW YORK (WABC) -- There is new and dramatic exclusive video of that Southwest Airlines hard landing at La Guardia Airport where the nose gear collapsed.

For the first time, we're seeing the approach of the plane.

Does it show it was in trouble earlier than we thought?

It is a short video clip, but sources tell Eyewitness News it is key to the NTSB's early finding that for some reason the pilot made a sudden and risky nose-gear landing.

The exclusive video shows the 737 hitting the runway hard, nose first.

"A nose spike, a very dangerous maneuver," said J.P. Tristani, a former commercial airline pilot.

This former commercial airline pilot viewed the video which he says shows the aircraft got ahead of the pilot creating an unstable and potentially dangerous condition.

"Striking the nose gear like that you could have had the aircraft swerve off the runway," Tristani said.

Video from inside the plane shows how hard it hit the runway, pushing the nose gear up into the plane.

This former pilot says the new video makes clear the Captain who grabbed control of the plane just seconds before touchdown, intentionally spiked the nose. The question is why?

"Possibly because the pilots didn't want to roll through intersection of two runways which would have ensured a much longer taxi time could be 5, 10 minutes getting to gate of an aircraft already late due to weather," Tristani said.

Just 69 seconds after the plane landed, the Port Authority Police Fire Rescue Unit was evacuating passengers of which only nine had minor injuries.

Now, this key video along with the flight data recorder is increasing evidence that something went wrong in the cockpit as this split screen of the faulty landing seen on top and the normal one on the bottom seems to show:

"The aircraft got ahead of the pilot and the pilot not ahead of the aircraft (not a good place to be) never a good place to be because you are no longer flying the airplane, it is flying you," Tristani said.

The NTSB says so far there are no signs of any mechanical problems.

Southwest Airlines says they working with both the NTSB and Boeing in the early stages of this investigation.

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