I have been following this thread all along and thank all of you regular posters for helping to make sense of the tragedy.
Would any of you be so bold as to speculate what was the role (if any) of a misunderstanding about station and sea level air pressure? Is that essentially why the crew thought they were well above the level of the airfield?
And at the same time, does anyone think that the crew might not have known for any reason that the airfield was higher than the approach terrain (by 20-30 metres from what I gather)? If so, why would they not be aware of this? Faulty maps, poor planning, bad briefing?
Could I also ask, why was the plane coming in on a path somewhat to the south of the runway centre-line and not on the centre-line? Was that deliberate (to get a better view as they expected in this operation) or does it indicate something about what caused the accident? I realize that being on the centre line would have resulted in a different, possibly less catastrophic, result like a belly landing or a ground strike and controlled crash landing (because there would be fewer or no trees along that path). Or do you consider that there would have been a catastrophic end result even on that course when avoidance was attempted?
These points may have been totally covered in the mass of details, but I find some of the posts confusing on these points, and feel that possibly other less experienced readers (non-pilots for certain) might not be getting a very clear picture of the main problems in this tragic accident.
We have been given a very clear picture of what happened, but not so clear as to why it happened.