I have no idea whether the same culture exists in Thai but if it does how did they get below the limiting steps?
Because they made an error. If you dive and drive there is no tolerance for an error. That is why we fly constant descent, there is tolerance built into it for most situations. Only where the Min height and the 3 degree coincide is there no tolerance and that is rare and only for a second or two of an approach.
I have been based in Asia for a while and most nights 777's and A320's dive low and fast down to 1000AGL over the hills 20nm from touch down around the arc into our home port. I am normally about 2000ft higher than them at the same point and about 50kts slower. Sometimes ATC are so used to the dive and drive that they " command " me to increase my rate of descent, not for traffic reasons but because they think I am stuffing up the approach.
That is their SOP and it makes the approach much less " error tolerant".
I think that is what we see at the Gold Coast and again in Melbourne. In my opinion, the battle is cultural.
Framer