Originally posted by 3WE
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I think that the pilot, under perceived pressure, decided to do an impossible approach in conditions that he knew would not lead to a landing, thus taking unnecessary risks, just to show that he did all he could. But I also think that his intention was just that, to go down to the MDA/MAP and then go around. The pilot stated so in several opportunities, including briefing the FO that "at 100 we'll go-around on auto"
What went wrong, then? A number of things.
The sterile cockpit was violated, and the CRM (or lack of) was terrible, putting too much share of the workload on the PIC and adding distractions.
A stabilized approach was never achieved but they did not abort the approach either.
While the pilots had inside the cockpit all the information and tools they needed not to bust minimums, the ATC didn't help with its less than accurate repeated "on course, on slope" guidance.
For reasons that I still don't understand, the 100m call (the minimum) was called three times. The PIC and FO called for a go-around more or less simultaneously with one of those calls.
At that point, they probably were already below 100m, and due to the unstabilized approach the were descending at an abnormally high descent rate, which diminishes the reaction time margins.
Apparently, they attempted to do the go-around on autopilot, something for which this autopilot is not approved in this type of approach (without a glide slope). Apparently the crew was not aware of this limitation. It's still unclear (for me) if this go-around would still work (even if not allowed), in what circumstances, and how reliably. In any event, the plane didn't rotate and thrust was not added, so the automated go-around didn't work.
Eventually but too late the pilots realized that, disconnected the automation, added thrust and pulled up. As said, it was too late.
The rest is history. The plane hit trees below runway elevation even when it never went that down, severed a birch without even touching it, and the birch responded by severing the airplane wing several dozen of meters beyond the point of the encounter. The plane didn't roll inverted but ended upside down and the Russian soldiers shot the survivors before clearing the artificial fog.
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