Excellent stuff Tim! It looks like a situation to me where it is extraordinary if the gust front didn't have something to do with it, given its proximity to where the accident occured but also extraordinary if i did because of how it seems like just a routine front. As you say its possible it set of a chain of events. This is just pure speculation on my behalf but any airline pilots will know (I'm only an instructor) but is it possible some kind of gust/turbulent/wind shear event could lead to the autopilot disconnecting and thus being miss managed, like forgetting that the auto throttle has also disconnected?