Yep, you sure can't blame Mr. Boeing for this one...
And it looks like most of our earlier ADS-B data analysis here was right on the money. They came smoking in high and fast above the glide slope as surmised. It should have been an immediate go around on an unstable approach long before getting anywhere near the ground.
They sat there fat, dumb and happy watching the autopilot fly into the ground on a low vis approach with these indications:
- the pitch flight director bars are removed from the PFDs;
- a yellow line is displayed through the G/S mode annunciation on the PFDs (FMA);
- both MASTER CAUTION lights are illuminated;
- a MASTER CAUTION aural is activated;
- an amber AUTOPILOT caution message is annunciated on EICAS.
And, the raw data glideslope indicators pegged off the bottom.
They ignored a EGPWS glideslope alert approaching 300 feet AGL.
The anomalous momentary false glide slope capture may have contributed to the confusion and I am surprised that you can still get LAND 2 with all the other alerts. I'll let the geniuses over at the training building figure out all the modes and submodes later, I'm going around.
Yet another perfectly good airplane flown into the ground due to mismanaged (or unmanaged) automation.
