Additionally, UPS1354 flew well above the PAPI glide-slope for runway 18 until about 15 nautical miles out, at which time UPS1354 began a very rapid descent while maintaining 300 knots, likely using a combination of engine power to maintain speed, and spoilers to increase descent rate. UPS1354 attempted to intercept the PAPI glide-slope from above by means of this rapid descent between 15 and 10 nautical miles from the runway touch down zone.
However, at 1 nautical mile UPS1354 was still flying at 190 knots, much too fast for the final approach. It should have been flying at about 135 knots during this portion of the approach.
In fact, the more I read it, the more the whole article stinks.
I agree, the idea of a 300 knot descent 15 miles out in the U.S. somehow doesn't seem right. It is definitely 250 kts. below 10,000 ft. and they don't give you 'high speed' in the U.S. even at night in Alabama. And if they were really doing 190 kts. one mile out they couldn't get land flaps out at that speed, right? Below 1000 agl and not stable and not configured they would go around, long before a one mile final I would think.
Furthermore, we have yet to hear about EGPWS, which should have provided an alert, but if ‘the map’ - the assumed position from ‘NAV’ was closer to the airfield than reality, then EGPWS might not have alerted the crew (a good reason to have GPS embedded in EGPWS).
The EGPWS I am familiar with has its own GPS and functions whether the LNAV in the aircraft has GPS or not. And, yes, I believe the EGPWS will give terrain warnings for descent toward terrain that is not the runway in the landing configuration. Seems like you would get a false alert at KUL (Sepang, not Subang) years ago due to a hill that had been removed to lower landing minima but was not yet updated in the EGPWS terrain database.