Lonewolf 50, your finding the drop rate of a stalled airliner raised a DUH factor in me.
If I remember the BEA report it heavily implied more vertical component than horizontal to the oceanic impact as deduced from damaged elements to which they had access.
We're talking of 100 to 150 MPH fall rate. Therefore the plane was not in anything close to a flying status when it hit. It may have had some forward velocity, but it would have been well below any known stall speed unless surface winds were hurricane force.
If the plane was NOT stalled it's vertical velocity would have had to be on the order of 200MPH to be noticeable as an effect on the wreckage, I suspect.
Sometimes units translations help. It didn't really dawn on me what speeds were likely involved until I made that translation.
I also got to thinking that the plane was making headway on the order of 4 to 5 miles per minute. In a little over 4 minutes it could not be much further from LKP than 10 miles if it also had to traverse the vertical distance as well. The BEA must have been out of its mind to search way out where it invested so much time and money.