A number of comments here from people who perhaps would do better to read the posts of those who actually know what they’re talking about. I’m referring in particularly to those who’ve suggested lateral manoeuvring in response to a TCAS resolution alert. (A seriously not good idea.) As for the person who suggested a 60 degree turn… I can only surmise he has never been on a flight deck of a passenger jet above 20,000’ – or sincerely hope he hasn’t.
From the number of ‘hits’ I see this thread has had, I’m guessing that a lot of people outside the industry are visiting this site hoping to learn what went wrong. To them, may I say please don’t take everything you read here as ‘Gospel’.
No single mistake ever causes an accident like this to occur, but a series of small errors, (many of which would be insignificant in isolation). People die when all those insignificant errors form an unbroken chain, the so-called ‘error chain’. That’s what happened on this occasion. Let’s hope the investigation concentrates on breaking any future error chain rather that playing the blame game – and breaking it far earlier than 90 seconds before a cataclysm.