I still think there's a good chance there's more to it
G'day Krusty,
I'm not saying definatively that what I suggested occured I'm just pointing out that I believe it's too early to make hard conclusions. I saw the speeds and yes it is obvious that in the later stages of the flight they had run out of 'cash in the hand' and 'money in the bank'. Was the seriousness of the lack of performance not realised until too late or did the failure escalate. We don't know whether he was trying to deal with a significant controllability issue which may be good reason not to slow to Vyse or even what the specific failure was.
That he had problems holding a vector to final could again suggest controllability issues or equally have been to remain VMC or find a suitable forced landing area. Or it could be something else that none of us have even thought of. What I'm again getting at is that we only have a very small amount of information to go on and what I have seen repeatedly with many accident investigations is that there is usually much more to the event than is initially thought.
Look, maybe he did make an error of judgement in not realising the seriousness of the situation. If so we'll find out in good time but I hate seeing a bloke being pre-judged with insufficent info, particularly when he's not around to defend himself.
100.above,
I agree a reassesment passing RIC would be a top idea. Reassesment of a decision if circumstances change is always appropriate. As I said above I still don't agree that we can yet concluded that the descent was to conform to ATC, more so since the ATC assigned levels were given after he had already descended in all the given examples in the initial report.