Higher Speed Impact
Some time ago, I offered the opinion that the evidence presented by the recovered debris and reports of injuries to passengers indicated a low speed impact. BEA hasn't yet come out with much on the horizontal velocity of the aircraft on touchdown but indicated a high vertical velocity existed.
My accident scene experience is limited to tactical jet aircraft and may not apply strictly to much larger aircraft, however let me share some mental data points I used to form my initial assessment.
Situation 1. An aircraft flying into the sea in near level flight at 300 knots. Data point: A piece of a crewman's boot, specifically the heel, torn away, complete with insole, and sheared in half lengthwise leaving only the starboard side of the heel. The few pieces of wreckage recovered were generally in the 18" to 24" size range.
Situation 2. An aircraft, departed from controlled flight <250 kt, with very high sink rate impacting the earth on the leading edge of the stbd (swept) wing. Data point: Every element of the forward fuselage was shattered to small pieces and most washed out of the crater by the fuel load. The after quarter of the fuselage did not shatter and retained its characteristic shape.
Situation 3. An aircraft impacting the water at 550 kt, 50 degrees nose down. Data point: Pieces of the crew were extruded into the instruments, some instruments were shattered some just crushed. Engine shells were converted into bent pieces of sheet metal.
I cannot convince myself that an airliner sized aircraft, impacting the sea at 300 knots with a high sink rate (even if in a level attitude) would not result in damage comparable to situation 1. The large size of the recovered cabin components indicates a significantly slower touch down.
It will certainly be interesting to see what the aircraft actually did assuming the DFDR is found and contains data all the way to touchdown.