Following on my post # 544 (yesterday) one issue that is not being addressed on this forum is the response, or lack of response, to the first TAWS “Pull Up” warning.
It is indisputable that if they had gone around at that point they would have survived. But instead, six seconds later, P2 announces “Normal”.
But it was far from “Normal”. In the next 1.5 seconds there is a further “Pull Up” and P2 calls “go around”. Total time from 100m QFE to go-around call 9 seconds,height loss 60m.
What happened in those critical lost seconds? My guess is the crew were taken by surprise, even shocked, and instead of reacting immediately they tried to assess from their TAWS display or their radio altimeters why this warning had occurred. Maybe they were looking outside too, but they were surely in cloud. The warning had stopped (perhaps because they were now over the ravine) so the instantaneous decision was that it had been a false warning.
It looks to me that, ironically, the TAWS instead of being a life saver could be said to have contributed to the disaster by distracting the crew at a critical point of the approach after they failed to react correctly.
At 100m with a high sink rate they should have been starting to level the aircraft to be level at the 70m procedual height at the MM ahead . Or going around because they had reached the official minima. (100m) And the minima specified in their own Flight Manual.(120m) But they continued descending.
Suddenly there is a second “Pull Up”, P2 realises they are already at 50m QFE, below the correct height for the MM (“Near Beacon”) and still descending rapidly. Because of the high sink rate, and the aircraft’s inertia they don’t have height for a successful go-around.
I think that Arrakis (#552) is correct when he says the the low level RA call outs are just standard procedure. It is entirely conceivable that this accident is not the result of inappropriate use of RA for approach judgement.
I am basing these comments on the graphics posted by Janeckzu. But we need the FDR data to show us exactly what happened at the 100m point..