In Black and White Book Club, we are reading Michael Freeman's Black and White FieldGuide. On p.42, it says, "At the risk of oversimplifying, subtracting color from imagery allows the other graphic elements and dynamics to increase in importance."
With this image, the emphasis for the viewer should be on the amount of snow being blown into the air as the plane is going down the runway. Turning the color original into black and white allowed that kind of focus.
It works -- that's the emphasis that comes through for me. This is quite a good shot with an interesting perspective. Lucky you trapped on a plane long enough to take these shots...:-)