About the speed, you're correct – 130 kts for a 777 is not fast, I was mistaken. In fact the NTSB just said the target approach given by the pilots was to be 137 kts. I should have chose one of the higher airspeeds given but I did not want to give a high estimate. I am not familiar with 777 speeds and should of done some more research in that regard. I did however, write that I found the sub-100 speeds to be extremely slow, even suggesting that it's most likely below stall speed – which seems to be correct as the NTSB says the stick shaker went off some 4 seconds before impact.
I read sometimes you can get a Vref under 120, great density altitude, sea level, winter, no pax cargo and low on fuel, but yeah when the IAS is reporting 98 you're pretty much screwed under any conditions. Maybe it was already on the ground at that point, if it wasn't.. it going to be on the ground real soon...
I would imagine some of the flightsim people I know are flying the approach under identical conditions right now. Would be interesting to hear at what point they found it unrecoverable. 98 kts is unrecoverable, but I wonder when it went unrecoverable. One problem with sims is if you know how its supposed to turn out, that screws up your actual reaction if you sim it 20 times trying different things. All you need is a cockpit distraction to totally screw up an approach. Maybe a false alarm of some type at just the wrong moment.
