McDonnell Douglas DC-10 (ZK-NZT)

Great shot!

that tail is so close to the runway!

beautiful aircraft...

I flew back to Auckland from Singapore on this "bird" in 1981...sooo comfortable and a great aircraft.
Brings back memories of my distant travels.
I also travelled on Sabina DC-10's, that was a great airline in it's day.

I agree with triple seven flyer! Not only that, but he's still got at least a foot more to fall before touchdown.

It appears to be in takeoff configuration and not landing. The tail is low, but shouldn't result in a strike.

One person says this DC10 is landing, another says that it is taking off. By looking at the picture how can I tell? It has flaps for landing and taking off. Is it something to do with runway markings?

Ok this is clearly not landing simply because of its angle of attack. A flare would have a much shallower AOA. Also the flap setting does not look right for landing. The DC-10 usually uses 30 or 40 degrees for landing, this seems to have about 10 degrees. Aircraft can takeoff anyway on a runway depending on the wind direction.