Add crappy wx as we had that day into the equation. Unfortunately this was one of those times where the fallibility of humans added up into a bad situation.
Being in St. Louis this one was a big story today. The media butchered it up quite a bit. They more or less said the aircraft "didn't have adequate warning systems to alert to low altitude". I'm assuming this means the jetstream didn't have EGPWS, which wasn't required at the time. They also had a free for all with the non-precision approach and how there are other systems available. IRK doesn't have anything other than non-precisions, at least they didn't the last time I was there.
I found an interview with the two surviors of this flight interesting. Both were injured pretty severly, one requiring about 9 surgeries since the accident. Both, however, agreed that they felt no bad feelings towards the crew because it was a mistake and nothing more.
The link at the bottom has a couple quotes from Woerth. The crew was in their 14th hour of duty time that day.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...1?OpenDocument