I'm no pilot but from what I have seen on carrier landings they come in at near idle, they have to - they need to fly slow, and only just before they touch the deck do they go full power
the pilot was supposed to do a slow low fly-by so he was coming in at low power, When he throttled up the engines to level off the engines didn't respond so he didn't have the power or speed to climp over the trees
had he not come in low he would have been over the trees
-Lasse