It would be very interesting to have the opinion of any one who had flown any Chinook as to what the implications could be for the power setting as found in ZD576 - low/intermediate and matched, as I recall.
I interpreted it to mean:
matched implied that the power had been steady right up to the last seconds (no time for either FADEC or pilot to change it in the last manouvre, what with the intrinsic lags) - ie a planned power regime for a reason;
the level was insufficient to maintain a high cruising speed (as indeed, according to Boeing's analysis, it had slowed down air speed by 20kts);
therefore they had to have been slowing down steadily for some reason.
I have always reckoned that they had misjudged/been misled by about 1/2 a mile in their distance off the mist - with a power setting sufficient to just balance the weight, with no component of forward thrust (coasting and letting the speed wash off), how much more could it have been expected to have slowed down in 1/2 a mile?
If you reckon down to 80kts IAS, or thereabouts, then it could have been down to a speed at which it could pull up quick smart for a landing in a short distance, could it not? Which is another indicator that they were intending to either land or wave off at that area.