The whole theory that ATCO is responding to heights called to him by crew is a very poor conclusion from CVR. Indeed, it indicates the complete opposite. ATCO calls "on course and glideslope" at 8km, at 6km, and at 4km, without any height being in the transcript beforehand. So what is he basing it on? Hence it's absolutely no reason to believe this was any different for the remaining two "on course and glideslope" calls at 3km and 2km.
The radar equipment was there, as shown on images. I can't understand why anyone would believe it was not working. Only because one person supposedly made a comment that it was not? Highly unlikely in my opinion.
It is however very interesting to observe that the 4km, 3km and 2km, "on course and glideslope" was given 400-600m too early. Which I explained in
this post.
I don't believe the crew did such completely amateur mistakes as suggested by many in this thread.
- believing the ground was flat because all polish runways have flat approach? I mean.. for someone on Microsoft Flight simulator perhaps. but a trained crew?
- Not knowing they listened to RA heights..? When these are probably automatic calls, so they would know very well it was RA.
I think they believed they were closer to the runway than they were. In this case even if they made a small dive, or more likely simply continued descent, from (what they thought were) 100m to 70-80m.. That would not have been a deadly reckless maneuver. I think it's quite possible they simply did something they thought was quite safe. But they believed they were already passed the hole. Unfortunately not. Of course the crew made many mistakes. Not monitoring their rate of descent, not cross checking barometric altimeter. These were the main blunders I think. Even if they did rely on wrong ATC distance readings, that is no reason for a CFIT. However, it could be an indirect cause, combined with the other mistakes of the crew.