According to the Commersant newspaper, the dominating version of the crash is the mistake of the pilots.
Whilst making the second attempt to land in the Rostov’s airport, the crew was forced not to proceed with the landing. Both attempts were made in the automatic mode and both times the weather conditions were restrictive.
The issue was that due to strong wind, the so-called Autothrottle was not operating properly. This device ensures the movement of the aircraft in accordance with the set trajectory of the descent or ascent in the auto-pilot mode. One of the pilots has switched off the auto-pilot and enabled the manual mode, however he did not take the technical specialties of that particular Boeing. This sparked up a conflict in the cabin: one of the pilots was shouting to the other to stop, however his attempts to take control of the aircraft did not succeed, but rather worsened the situation- the control was lost.
It is still unclear who exactly made the mistake and who was trying to resolve it- the experts are yet to find the answer to that question.