Remember the Pappa India Trident. A police officer who attended the crash site said some of the injuries might have been survivable if only they could have got the medics to the site more quickly. This hull with part intact? I'm getting a bad feeling about not being able to get there quickly.
Diverskii said,
Think it's safe to say -14,000fpm is a glitch
And I was about to say, yes, but what caused that glitch when
ACMS said:
The 14,000 fpm is a spike possibly caused by the event triggering this crash. Possibly a pressure shock over the static ports?
The Aircraft continued at FL380 for a time after that spike then descended as you'd expect with flight idle and speed brakes extended at VMO.
Somehow the crew became disabled and unable to level off.......
If we're to have speculation, I think this is a good one. Real food for thought. The main issues with this idea are: Is the data reliable? And if so how often can one find glitches of that magnitude - i.e. is it unique? If it were reliable data and rare, I think it would be very significant.
I've found myself dropping out of the sky at night not far from there. I only had to contend with hot pieces of windshield going down my shirt and I'm very aware how unexpected occurrences like that can make a major difference in what should be routine drills. They may have had a far bigger distraction.