Similar close shave incident to a Nauru Airlines B737-400 attempting night NDB approach into Kosrae, Micronesia, Central Pacific region. In that incident, the crew forgot to set correct QRH and got to 370 feet over the water 4 miles out. They initially disregarded GPWS warnings. During subsequent go-around the pilot allowed the aircraft to descend at minus 2 degrees body angle before pulling up. Potentially deadly.
See report:
https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications...r/ao-2015-066/
In the case of the St Maartin incident, why did the crew use RNAV for the approach rather than use the VOR approach which is more accurate. Boeing FCTM recommends switching the autothrottle to OFF during manually flown approaches because leaving it in ARM can have has undesirable consequences. Judging by what happened, the Boeing recommendation was certainly valid