Ran out of airspeed, altitude and right rudder. Unless they find mechanical failure, this was pilot error, both pilots. The pilot not flying the approach should have been monitoring the airspeed, glideslope, power settings, configuration etc.
I prefer to think it was unrecoverable mechanical failure. I doubt this.
In the NY Post article, where you can watch a tragic video made by one of the doomed passengers, they state that the plane burst into flames before crashing. There are some blurry frames of the video that seem to show flames. Not sure what the origin could be unless it was post-crash.
This appears to be the same mistake as the Learjet crash in California last year, where just a smidge more roll on final approach took them below stall speed.
**rudder.**
Year 1968: 59 Cessna 310C, my dad was right seat, practicing for for his MEL instructor rating exam. The student: 5’4”, 14 yr old me.
He had me execute a final approach stall, said “keep the wings level with the rudder”. Well, when I needed to stomp the rudder, I didn’t have seat far enough ahead and couldn’t push right rudder far enough and quick enough as the left wing stalled. We lost 1,500’ in a hurry before he leveled it off. He complained, “Didn’t you hear what I told you to do?”
I told him I couldn’t reach the pedals good enough. When I moved the seat ahead, it only moved one more notch. I was already sitting on a pillow. We put it behind me and tried again, but I was swinging my head left and right to see how level we were. He just put a hood on me and had me fly instruments. Then for the next half hour I tried to keep up with the plane. Oh the father-son memories.