Dalek
Just a quickie – here's one little bit of information that has been mentioned before regarding speed:
You wrote <<We also know the aircraft impacted at or around VNE. (Mr Cable, expert witness.)
How can this be explained?
1. Gross negligence. Having seen the Mull the operating pilot reached down and selected a very large handful of throttle. >>;
Well actually they had “throttled” back to an intermediate level and held it long enough for the engines to be matched – as the Boeing analysis pointed out, the resultant reduction in airspeed was masked by the increased tailwind as they approached the landmass. As the airmass pushed up the slopes, the lower layer increases in speed significantly – it also gives rise to the “ground-hugging” mist that runs up the slopes with a strong on-shore wind. Not only was this mist evidence of the strong wind, the wind speed was recorded there at 30-35 kts.
An explanation for this is frightfully simple – they had eased back to coast in towards the shoreline but were already much closer in than they had thought.