Whiskery,
I see nobody has bothered to answer your question
The crews going down there appeared non-compliant with most other areas such as MSA and low flying, why wouldn't they consider slowing things down for a good look. How do we know other crews didn't do it and thought it was a good idea? Would lowering flaps be as bad as hitting a mountain?
Wonder why?
Mahon/Vette hypotheses,
My dictionary gives "Hypothesis" . .
A statement or theory to be proved or disproved by reference to evidence or facts
That is very accurate, an assumption, and it certainly has created a considerable amount of argument.
A statement or proposition assumed to be true for the sake of argument