For you Airbus 330-200 drivers out there (or anyone else who actually flies for a living at the higher flight levels)....
FL 350 and still heavy with weight of 8 hrs of fuel plus reserves remaining for the trip.
Autopilot disconnect (for whatever reason, the ACARS says this was the first event) , now hand flying in Alternate Law. No overbank or (my understanding) buffet protections. Moderate, or possibly severe turbulence in the mix if that's what kicked off the Autopilot in the first place due to pitch or roll overlimits. Now your prime consideratoin is to keep the aircraft within the aerodynamic buffet boundaries.
Have any of you hand-flown an Airbus (or other aircraft heavy with fuel) at those flight levels even in smooth air? What about in rough air and may have to maneuver...or outside forces are doing the maneuvering/airspeed fluxuations for you and you're fighting to stay withing the (small at FL350) flying envelope/Q-corner?
The problem with > moderate turbulence when you're high and heavy isn't about shearing off parts of the aircraft that in turn cause it to come down, it's about being able to keep it flying especially if the Autopilot gives up due to conditions exceeding it's capability to keep up with changes of axis/and or airspeed and suddenly hands control over directly to the pilots, where that pilot may have little or no experience controlling his wallowing aircraft in that high-altitude, small margin for error realm of fight on a good day, let alone a dark and stormy night.
Perfectly good airplanes have succumbed to the Laws of Aerodynamics with no faults, structural failures before the fact, lightning strikes, b-word events, etc. etc. etc. in the mix. Just because in normal conditions we don't run up against the boundaries of those Laws doesn't mean they disappeared...they're still there waiting to bite. And we are paid NOT to run up against those boundaries and avoid situations where we might, and this is what we routinely do as professionals.
Take a jet aircraft and put it high, heavy, and run it through rough enough air and the Laws of Aerodynamics are waiting. I assume they still teach these things for those that haven't experienced it. They really aren't kidding.