More speculation, nothing to do with why it happened nor with how the emergency was handled, rather what happened after the aircraft hit the ground. This accident has been one of the most densely covered photographically so there's plenty to look and wonder at.
If Mr Mike Cowan's (he is mentioned as a crash witness in jondc9's last post) estimate of an aoa of 45-50° is even approximately correct, the nose would have come down like a hammer from what, the equivalent of five-seven stories? Would that in itself not have been sufficient to shear most of the structure just ahead of the heavy cargo, i.e. just aft of the nose section? And, if that's the case, not surprising flight deck crew were "pinned" down and had to be extracted by the rescue team. I hope they recover quickly and fully.
Nitpicking perhaps but what's had me puzzled is, was the gear down or not? Several posts and the ABC report suggest a "belly landing", and sliding on wet (or dry) grass over sandy, frangible soil. But, that close to touchdown, would the gear not have been extended? Surely better, despite the speed penalty, than a gear-up landing?
Pics from starboard show what what appear to be those bogies swivelled completely around in line with the direction of slide. And the port gear doors are shown still slightly ajar. Look closely and one can pretty much see where the port wing tipped over and dug in just before the aircraft came to a halt; had the aircraft been bouncing along on its belly surely that wing would have hit the ground much sooner and at a much higher speed, with hotter consequences than just some fuel sprayed out to port.
So, was the gear down or not? If so, what difference did it make?