Originally Posted by Machinbird
It seems that the crew somehow was able to keep the engines running for the majority of the descent, at least some of which must have been at very high AOA. Perhaps the fan creates local airflow straightening in front of the engine at high AOA. Perhaps the power settings were low enough to avoid stall.
The problem of such form of reasoning is obvious to me:
Axiom 1: ACARS sequence (pitots icing) started at 0210; consequently, it would certainly cause an unrecoverable upset at nearly the same time (or even before if you want to make the Normal Law pulling up this zoom climb all by itself).
Axiom 2: This unrecoverable single upset was followed by a massive loss of altitude, but at a very slow rate of descent, from 0210 to crash time; during those four to five minutes, while a very small linear ground distance was nonetheless covered.
Axiom 3: As ACARS sequence ended at 0214:26, this aircraft crashed no later than 0215:14.
While I'm questionning Axioms 1, 2 & 3 altogether, your point will become fully circular if your answer is that those engines could not have stalled at very high AOA because they obviously did not have stalled during all the descent down to sea level, which some part of it should have been at very high AOA.
Don't you think?
As for the "full power", a response (at this time) to low speed stall was supposed to apply (full?) power and to reduce AOA -now revised the other way, if I remember it correctly.