The traditional way to land a plane is with the nose waaay up in the air. The idea is that you're moving slowest when you're approaching the runway with a hefty angle of attack, and you plant most of the plane's weight down on the big main landing gear, which is much better at absorbing a giant slab of asphalt than the itty bitty nose gear.
The problem is that this can be overdone. Granted, it's difficult in something like a single-engined Cessna with a whole lot of space under the tail—but try the same thing in, say, a Diamond DA-40 or even a 777.
See? That's a problem. The last time I flew a DA-40, I was strongly encouraged to land the plane as flatly as possible to avoid serious damage to the composite tail section. In the case of the DA-40, repairing the tail is at least a five-figure exercise. In the case of the 777 pictured above? Probably seven. Remember that it's a $200 million plane.
Ouch.
Geebus, you'd think with all the high-falootin' electronics in the 777 they'd have a tilt sensor that told the pilot to pitch down if they got their nose too far up for landing...
Maybe that pilot had two different shoes on that day.
Maybe they were just trying to scrape some dingleberries off the empennage.