Not a "spin". A spin would need altitude.
It's not a developed spin (there wasn't the altitude for that) but is sure looks like an incipient spin to me (been there hundreds of times, but at a safe altitude). The aircraft is obviously semi-stalled at least just before the roll-off to the left, nose high with a high rate of descent, very high alpha. Then the left wing dropped as the bottom fell out of it.
What we don't know is why it got into that situation.
If it's true the airline happily used a sim with inop rudder pedals then that says a lot about standards.
Agree that the aeroplane at high alpha as this one was would have come down faster than it would at best glide. But as someone said, the attitude may have been forced on the pilots by having to avoid hitting a building, by sacrificing speed for height. Though from what we can see in videos there are no buildings protruding into the aircraft's flight path that would cause that - maybe just involuntary desire to 'pull back to keep it in the air 'till the river?'