stickyb;
has anyone watched the animated reconstruction mentioned earlier on liveleak?
It doesn't seem to me to tie in with the facts as already presented - i thought there was a 180 and flat crash, not the nosedive this appears to show.
The "animation" is strictly from someone's imagination and basic animation skills, and
nothing more.
While such animations can be done by anyone with sufficient skill in the standard programs (3D Studio, Corel, Flash, etc), for an animation to be useful and not misleading, it must be driven by the flight data. Nobody beyond the NTSB will have that data. Even if they had, it isn't just anybody who would have the kind of proprietary software that is capable of turning digital data into an accurate representation/animation.
This illustrates the very significant problem with cartoons vs data-driven accident investigation tools. Because it looks "real", it is taken as such by most viewers, when in fact it is just a figment of someone's imagination using the information made available from the NTSB briefings.
So you are right - the animation, a poor one at that, does not tie in with the known facts and should be dismissed out-of-hand. The sound-track is your first clue...
PJ2