Any pilot, when faced with a loss of thrust, or loss of airspeed, must lower the nose and maintain the airspeed. These pilots did not maintain their airspeed. They LOST CONTROL of their aircraft.
I have to say I generally agree with this. However if they lost power in both engines (and assume the hydraulics as well), how controllable would the 738 be on finals, with gear and flaps extended?
If this was a loss of power accident, maybe the pilots tried to lower the impact speed with a high AOA, similar to the BA 777 aircrew, but with less success.
I also ran some calculations, and assuming where the airframe stopped was about 1.5km out (as reported), they're altitude should have been somewhere around 250ft to 275ft AGL at that spot.