Originally Posted by
Race200
FMJ, Surely the speed was diminishing because they were going near vertically downwards. The speed shown is ground speed, not airspeed.
That's the strange part, the vertical speed does not exceed about 130mph, so does not reflect an aircraft pointed at the ground, that would result in speeds well above 200mph. However that rate of descent seems too high for a stalled aircraft, and the profile looks like it flew straight ahead with a relatively gentle turn to the right. As I said earlier, the duration of the event is more likely the reason for no mayday call than anything else, why focus on radio when you are trying to save the aircraft.
I'm with LB on the issue of blaming pilots when there is no evidence of it. The A36 example above makes little sense to say it was on autopilot, but then descended at 5000fpm. When quite a few known cases of pilot incapacitation tend to have the aircraft continue to fly until fuel exhaustion or the pilot wakes up and regains control. Not enter a sudden plunge to doom.