If, for example, one was new to this discussion and has read only the last few hundred posts, one might venture the following: The upset most likely occurred with the auto-pilot's dropout, (in fact, upset may have caused the drop) otherwise the pilots might have disconnected prior. Involuntary drop would suggest surprise. Surprise is not welcome in a pilot's world, it like as not causes non innovative thinking, or at least a stress level that could foreclose solutions in even the highly trained man. Here is a wide body twin, upset, at great altitude, in the dark. The weather is demonstrably crapola, the panel is lighting up, (as it is intended to), with warnings, each one demanding the requisite action. The immediate call is to regain aerodynamic flight, regain stability. One would let drop all consideration of navigation and communication in the interest of flight.(Aviate, Navigate, Communicate). The lack of mayday or any position report here is highly suggestive of disabled comm, or a work load that commands exclusion of comm, or nav. If in a cell, one attempts to gain manouvering velocity, and control, hang the flight's 'direction'. Perhaps the decision had been made earlier to offset to the right of the airway, a fact that would be in a pilot's recent strategy, and have an influence on the heading he chose to try to evac the cell. If he had turned right to exit the cell, and regained controllable flight, but had encountered mech issues that obviated continued twin ops shy of the 50% mark of overwater operation, he might have continued well right of the airway, attempting to "return". A turn of this sort puts him into the area of the "bifurcated" slick. This stain has a definite shape, and a suggestion therefrom of recent cause. If engine trouble, the need to turn is obvious. "South, SouthEast", is a completely understandable position to have, given what we know, without injecting too much "conjecture".
Upon destroying this posit, there are two or three others that come immediately to mind.
bear