Why not any info given on VHF?
If anyone is use to flying around severe weather it has to be the ET Pilots. After having been at their Flight Operations 2x in 2008/9 they showed no reasons to suspect any maint. or crew training issues on the 737 fleet.
Assuming this crew did not suffer sudden a loss of Comm. for various reasons- why does nobody not even send of a short brief one way broadcast of what is happening? "Maydayx3 / lightning strike loss of control / severe turb. loss of control / cargo fire & loss of pressurization / explosion on board / etc."?
Maybe we Pilots never assume that these situations will lead to such an event? A short message or burst of info that would have been picked up on either Dep. of 121.5 and avail. for immediate scrutiny. Now some of you will say the crew workload was too high, but then again on the CVR I would still expect to hopefully hear "Brace Brace Ditching" or similar from the Cockpit. Makes a big difference then just a splash! As with AF447 and dozens of other crashes this short info transmit would have helped the investigation a great deal?? Should this maybe become SOP?