The icing hypothesis
One hypothesis that has been raised in this forum is that severe icing might have had a role to play in a series of events in this disaster. How severe would airframe/pitot icing have to be to overwhelm the A330’s anti icing and de-icing systems? Are there any icing case studies on the A330 or other Airbus aircraft? What weight do the Airbus pilots on this forum give to this hypothesis?
I am hard pressed to find any reportable severe icing cases on medium to large commercial jets (of any type) in the last ten years (regional turbo props etc. being the exception).