Originally Posted by MemberBerry
They made mistakes that are hard to explain, like attempting to enable the left side auto-pilot, and not realizing the instruments on the right side were the ones working properly. But I don't think allowing the aircraft to reach VMO is one of those mistakes.
Sir. Thinking like that is cruising for a bruising.
With flight control problems, you should typically go for the center of the envelope and avoid the corners of the envelope, then explore cautiously.
Besides that, if they had managed to keep control much longer, their continued acceleration would likely have caused a structural failure! The aircraft has a Vmo limit for a reason.
What killed them was the loss of control authority that occurs in the 737 control system due to control surface forces exceeding the elevator actuator capability and loss of control movement due to cable stretch at very high control forces.
When you go really fast, that big HS can make bad stuff happen really fast before you have time to counteract with your dinky little elevator.