deSitter, hard desert pan is not ocean water. Reexamine mm43's drawings of how he imagined the plane hit. Note the tail. Think of the tail surfaces. Where is the tail assembly going to go when the tail surfaces hit the water with the rest if the plane trying to force it deeper?
The tail assembly is going to be pushed upwards, distorting it heavily and pretty much pivoting it around a point a little rear of the nose of the tail fin. That fits the damage seen to the leading edge. Pushing it up that way places tremendous strain on the attachment clevises. They break. Tail fin pops off, probably to one side or the other. Back where it lives the only stuff to hit amounts to the elevators and tail cone. Being thrown free of that debris by the combination of the popped clevises releasing hold down pressure on the fin and wind is not nearly a stretch of my imagination.
If it did come off before the plane hit, where is the ACARS message about a massive hydraulics failure? It could NOT have been the precipitating cause of the accident.