Wheeee!

As a rule of thumb, the landing gear contributes about 10% of the total aicraft mass. One can see why.

Sylvia.

Could be an example of false glide slope capture

I think this can only happen if the glide slope is approached from above. Ideally all approaches to the glide slope will be from below (level flight until capture, then descend) but ATC traffic requirements can often dictate otherwise (rapid descent until glide slope, then reduce descent rate).

Sylvia.

I am not sure if they ever captured the glide slope. According to the narrative factual part of

On the comment part of that site, there are more than 100 wild speculations of what was the actual problem. The most common explanation was that the crew mixed 500 m (as used in Russia by the ATC) and 500 ft in autopilot control. Even with that mixup they were too low.

With 3 degree glide slope, they should have been at 700 m/2300 ft at that distance from the airport. Something doesn't exactly add up.