The crew were all of Phillipino origin with the exception of one Kenyan and one Indian national who works on the ops side and boarded at Bagram.
The a/c impacted an almost vertical rockface 7 miles from the airport at a GPS alt of 7000ft. With the airport alt close to 6000 ft this is an extremely low alt for an a/c to be at a distance of 7 miles. The MSA for that area is in excess of 16,000ft. Approaching the airport at night even in VMC requires that the crew have good local knowledge and maintain good visual contact with the runway... even then there are risks. This a/c was initially visual and in contact with the tower (not app) and was instructed to follow another a/c already established on the localiser. This involved them turning downwind away from the a/p and effectively into a 'black hole'. No longer able to maintain visual contact and no longer in radio contact with approach radar the crew were now in a no-mans land surrounded by mountains rising to around 10,000 feet initially and considerably higher further on.