The images were horrifying there is no other way of saying it. The drop from 17,000 to ground level in less than a minute must have been the most harrowing thing possible. There are two culprits, (a) flying outside the flight envelope and (b) icing. Which is the same thing, complete loss of lift.
From the stories, the aircraft was in a decent mode at 17,000 at 205 kn, when it suddenly dropped like a stone. Flying outside the flight envelope usually occurs at altitude, and not on landing. Few people are aware of this but at 40,000 feet the air speed difference between a high-speed and a low-speed stall is surprisingly small.
The reason icing is the likely culprit is that the ATR-500 has a long history of "medium icing performance", but also that pilots in the area were warned of icing conditions, as a pilot reduces speed, less hot air is bled in the wing leading edge, so it is more than possible that this was the culprit, rumors are that there were no communications from the cockpit which tells you that the pilots were completely surprised by the icing event. Aviate, Navigate, Comunicate are the motto of all pilots, control the aircraft, and they were in a death-spiral when the video is shown, there is no forward momentum, yet the engines are at full blast.
A tragedy there is no doubt, but it's also important to note that this is one of the very few comercial aircraft accidents in 2024
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