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It's due to a phenomenon called "ground effect." If you are less than about a half wingspread from the ground, there is a cushion effect caused by air trapped between the ground and the wings. That cushion can mimic lift, and a plane can actually fly in ground effect at less than flight speed. It works dandy on flat, level surfaces, but introduce some vegetation or other objects, and the cushion effect suddenly disappears.
Now, in this instance, they had probably achieved two-thirds or three-fourths of liftoff speed when (out of the dark) they saw the end of the runway zip by. Way too late to stop and too slow to fly, but they had no choice. They probably yanked the plane off the ground and into ground effect. They'd still have been accelerating, but any attempt to raise the nose would have resulted in an instant stall. Sooner or later, they had to raise the nose to miss something - and that was that.
In jet aircraft, it's called "flying behind the power curve" where the drag caused by lift or configuration is greater than the thrust available. The only way out of that corner is down, but if there is no room for down...
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