GB;
Hmm, if your IRUs tumbled, and you weren't yet out of control, you could put 5 degrees downtilt, 80 mile range on the WXR, and fly by the ground return. Rough sea is a good reflector.
Yep - great idea, alongside using the GPS for speed and altitude info as some have mentioned. Buddy of mine purchased the Collins 700 radar manual last week. There's some bread-and-butter info in one of our FCOMs and it's better than it was (which was impossible not to accomplish given that there was nothing) but it's still real thin.
The "how" of this accident is the thing...Why? Loss of speed data doesnt' cause loss of control. I think there are some good notions here but I hope we'll have a more definitive answer some day - sooner, than later.