I wonder if I may attempt some gentle knicker-untwisting so that, like MD83FO, we can attempt to return this thread to the THY crash at AMS rather than a discussion on scientific abbreviations?
Surely the evident massed 'intelligence' here of aviators on this board were able to deduce what the poster meant by 'Vz'? I took me less than .1 of a second to make a subconscious (and correct) assumption that SFLY meant vertical speed and had in fact allocated a scientific factor - velocity in the Z axis - to an aeronautical item. I would assume that most of us knew the term was meant to represent downwards in the context it was used? The fact that he/she used the incorrect aeronautical terminology (velocity in aspects of stability and control are commonly U, V and W in each of the axes, and here would have been -W) is not actually of world-shattering importance, is it?
I for one am more interested in knowing what happened in this accident than in wondering whether I should be setting a Vz of (-)750fpm or a (-)Vs.