Kaptin M,
Your first post you appear to favour ice as the cause, in fact you even state "Why was the aircraft allowed to be dispatched into these conditions"
Consider who it was that allowed the flight to be dispatched. The company CEO, Chief Pilot, Check and Training officer, under what hat should he have declined the very good revenue producing flight??.
The people that conducted the enquiry had all the information that they needed to investigate all the possibilities, no doubt if there was any fault with any of the aids this would have been promulgated by NOTAM.
The question of distortion of approach lights I am sure would have been covered, no body else had reported this as a problem on the night, not even the preceeding 737.
Your questioning of the integrity of the LLZ.
A.. It was not a coupled approach, this was pointed out in the report, although not perfect the LLZ tracking was not the problem, it was tracking the glidescope that was very poor.
B.. If he became visual why then did they fly into the ground??
As you correctly state it is speculation on my part, but the speculation is done with some 6,000 hrs of SPIFR operations, including many night approaches to Christchurch over the years. I see nothing in the statement of the Pax in the front right seat that would contradict that speculation.
As usual you would appear to be more interested in playing the man rather than the ball, this leads me to the conclusion that your non de plume is in fact close to your real name Capt Walter Mitty.
Prospector