Originally Posted by
llondel
I thought that was more because they suffered compressor stalls but didn't (or couldn't) throttle back to let the engines recover. ISTR that ATC was pushing them to climb so they kept trying to get the engines to produce more power until the compressor blades all fell off.
Going from memory here, but IIRC the compressor bleeds became plugged with the massive amount of ice - which then lead to the compressor stalls when they tried to accel the engines. However I also seem to recall that there was compressor blade tip curl consistent with ingesting so much incompressible water/ice - the blade damage then contributed to the compressor and inability to clear the stall. Eventually blades started coming apart and it was game over.
Sadly, they were within gliding range of an airport when they lost all power, but for some reason they then temporarily lost battery power (including the radios) and without guidance they turned the wrong way - by the time they got the radio back it was too late - they'd lost too much altitude.