Although Dani is technically correct about passengers not surviving true stalls,he is splitting hairs somewhat.
I'm not so sure he is, its just his words and this black/white stall misconcept I think...
It certainly didn't have a very high vertical speed... my words yesterday were something like '... mushing along with insufficient thrust' at the moment of impact, what preceded that may have, probably was, more extreme pitch and speed deviations, but last minute recovery and control inputs may well have saved over one hundred lives..
The deaths occurred in the forward section experiencing extreme longitudinal decelerations, the centre section behind having many times its mass and hence energy.
I would not be surprised to find that control changed hands within the last minute before impact... nor that there was a degree of inattention shortly before and/or a prior poor decision.