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Old 3rd Jun 2011, 13:15
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CogSim
 
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I doubt that an object weighing hundreds of tonnes, moving at great speed under its own power and 10km in the air and designed to be in that environment, would end up in a simple trig equation, where vertical equaled horizontal. But it is one possibility I suppose.
This a/c seems to have somehow remained stalled from FL380 to at least FL100 which in itself is quite a feat. But, if I were to put my money on it, I'd say the Pi/4 angle at impact for a machine with the wings and power of A330 makes it an extraordinary coincidence, if it was still flying in the conventional sense. With the very limited data we have, the descent profile is suspiciously close to ballistic with some lateral control.
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