The flight was continued at full power instead of cruise setting to make up for lost time for the next fifteen minutes.

[5] It found that when the captain noted the fuel imbalance, he said, "We'll just open the cross flow again ... sit on left ball and trim it accordingly."

[5] This resulted in the plane being flown at a large sideslip angle while still under autopilot control, by means of the rudder trim mechanism.

This meant that there was no compensation applied for the rudder trim input, and the plane entered a roll and steep descent, disintegrating around flight level 199.

The investigation found poor visibility at night in low cloud was a factor in preventing the pilots realizing sooner.