Firstly may i say to all our Turkish colleagues how sad we are for your loss.
Looking at the flight data against the Google earth plot it would appear that in respect of speed it all went very bad in the space of 30 sec going from around 129 knts GROUND SPEED to 86knt GROUND SPEED in that 30 sec time frame, the allitude read outs need to be adjusted for the QNH which was 1027 and touch down elevation is -10ft AMSL
The track shown is consistent with either a visual or loc track on short finals if the aircraft was being hand flown, but it would appear to be below the glide slope for some period having left the platform of 2000ft at the correct point.
There is no way IF the engines were running? and the A/T was engaged in ARM mode?, that the aircraft could have got that slow, but it did.
I had considered whether this was a GO=AROUND that went wrong from an unstable approach, but if the A/T was serviceable and engaged in ARM then there would have, even very late on be either a reduction in the rate of descent or an increase in airspeed (recorded as GROUND SPEED) the fact that the speed remainds constant at 86knts points to the aircraft at the back of the drag curve with a high ROD in an all but stalled condition.
In conclusion i remain of the view that this was either a loss of power due birds <5% chance or an handling error, which sadly seems the most probable.
The windshear theory is highly unlikely, there will have been an inversion but probably no more than 4 or 5 degrees.
The vortex off an aircraft ahead is also unlikely with a surface wind of 240/10 which is 60 deg off the inbound track and at a 1000ft that would gave been nearer 270/20 so any wake would have been blown down wind.
Turkish airline are part of the Star alliance and any star alliance member is heavily audited in respect of flight safety so i expect this to be a serviceable aircraft with a well trained crew.
Last edited by INKJET; 28th Feb 2009 at 07:24.