Doublecheck my arithmetic, but it seems to me had the PF delayed the go-around actions by only
half a second more, they would have touched down short. At -717FPM at DH, that's pretty much exactly 12' / second vertically. The reason they took 9 seconds to
initiate the GA is another matter entirely, though, and they should count their lucky stars it was open fields under the approach, rather than a substantial obstacle.
To think that in this day and age a ("relatively") modern airliner came within half a second of CFIT due to confusion, from whatever source, about 1011 / 1001 is unacceptable. I well know the HF at play, including the French ATC speaking French, but a single slip should not result in something like this.
Then again, missing a single step in a single procedure
did cause BHP to have the
biggest derailment in history in terms of terms of tonnes, size and speed - but the rail industry
is decades behind aviation in terms of HF & safety culture.
