SP - way back in this thread I advanced my 'personal' theory that they were picking up some visual cues and 'pressed on', although we seem to have no CVR (or indeed any basic cockpit communication!) to indicate this. It may account for the lack of g/a, and could account for an increase in r of d, and in my mind it could be the lack of knowledge of the rising ground and very late sight of it that finally caused the crash? I feel this is a far more likely scenario than looking for obscure technical reasons why an auto g/a was not flown when, as janeczku posted, the manual g/a was so accessible and easy. I suspect we will never know!