bearfoil...
Sorry, how is 55 degrees a much shallower descent than 61?
I feel like Alice in Wonderland, except I'm a guy.
It's not 55, it's 25. Please please please draw a picture of an airplane, side view, nothing fancy, with its nose tilted upward 15 degrees. Then take a protractor and draw a line at a 40-degree angle downward from the airplane's longitudinal axis (which stands in, for purposes of discussion, for the mean aerodynamic chord). That is the flight path angle -- definition of angle of attack. It's 25 degrees.
Granted, the BEA numbers could be wrong -- garbage in, garbage out.
Maybe I should draw the picture. I'm not very good, but I'll try.