Captain Streil, a highly experienced pilot, had accumulated roughly 14,800 flight hours throughout his flying career.

[4] As it was later revealed, the controller was busy handling a potential collision conflict between two other aircraft, and therefore neglected to clear Flight 723 for the approach.

The flight crew had to ask the controller for approach clearance, which was immediately given, but by that time—more than a minute after the intercept vector had been issued—they were high and fast and almost over the outer marker.

The weather conditions at the time of the crash were partial obscuration and fog, with a ceiling of 400 feet (120 m), one-half mile (0.80 km) visibility, and light winds.

[1] According to the CVR, no altitude callouts were made by the crew during the final approach, as the aircraft descended below the glideslope and decision height, until it struck the seawall and crashed.

The unstabilized nature of the approach was due initially to the aircraft's passing the outer marker above the glide slope at an excessive airspeed and thereafter compounded by the flightcrew's preoccupation with the questionable information presented by the flight director system.