The big question remains: why did the pilots recognize the urgency of the situation too late?
That's my biggest question. I have only a basic grasp of everything that was in play here, so I can't speak of the technicalities and procedures. But I think that even though the FO was in training, he was in training on a 737 so it was not like this was his first time flying anything or had too little experience flying at all. Plus, with all the combined experience that was there in the flight deck, how did the situation degrade so much?
The tapes will be interesting (although I seriously cringe listening to the ones when I know it's the pilot's last flight ever). But at least maybe the investigation of this leads to prevention.
Thanks for the info.