Thank you for all the back-ground information. But it makes it all the more difficult to understand the WHY? As you said, so many clues ignored; AND it might seem that these were 2 captains and the more experienced and senior was PM, but he kept quiet. Astonishing, and we'll never know the answers. Such an avoidable tragic loss. Indeed, one of the most avoidable crashes we've ever read about on here. The flapless Spanair at MAD had a few mitigating circumstances, not enough to exonerate the crew. This crash seemed to stem from another source entirely.