Sorry can't find it somehow, there was a large photo and comment that the airport should cut all trees in approach. As they nearly made it, managed to get sharply up, out of the ? that hole pre-road, made it over the road, but hit the trees again the other road side. That's of course, after this tragedy, absolutely. Still, if you look at the reconstruction aerial maps, of the Smolensk chap who stubbornly works on them (it's easier for him, he is local. can take a drive, look up, after all), they were 15 metres above the road, not 2.5 m above the ground, as they started it, the lowest point, in the hole. May be not the trees on the other road side were the problem for them at that point, but that they were already half turned over, above the road.
The forum over there concluded that if not that turn over they would have made it, they gained their height, got out of the hole. And at least would have landed on the trees the other road side heavy, but not with so many casualties. And that even that they were not on the glissade but slightly leftward -their route, factually taken - the red line - was still bringing them right onto the runway, not bad course, they would do the runway.
I have written that post because spin was not pilot error, as was suggested, but merely the effect of collision with the trees and partial wing loss. Without the trees, they would have find themselves above the runaway and aligned with its left edge. Pilot would than have the chance to try landing, or to continue with climb which he started in the valley. Either way, they would probably still be OK, in spite of all previous errors. It is easy to see that they were in perfect horizontal position during the controlled part of the flight. Look at these pictures.
This one is new. Vertical fight profile aligned with satellite image from Smolensky forum:
Vertical Profile & Sat Image
At the first tree they were 4m above the ground. And a moment later maybe only 2-3m. That is completely impossible if you are not perfectly horizontal. And on picture 7, after the first serious tree collisions,
here, you see that the tree cut was higher, but still horizontal. That is the tree before the first road. Pilot lost control probably moment before that, and begin to spin immediately after that. By the next road he was already inverted (picture 9).
In high-resolution satellite photo,
here, we can see that the trees were not cut even exactly on the runaway axis. So, whatever errors have led to this situation, they might have had some chance even after all of them, if only the aproach was clear of high trees.