"...bear, the picture The Shadow paints is an approach to, or arrival at, the coffin corner, or at least one of the legs of the angle with CC at its peak, with the crew utterly unaware of their flight condition changing...."
something like: "... (unidentified trend = danger)."
I think there has been a lot of "either, or" here on thread, and myself included.
Coffin corner is not impossible, but unnecessary to explain what happened. The key is that we think the a/c lost control due to surprise, among other things. Something happened to down this a/c. "A perfectly good a/c".....
This accident could have occurred well shy of CC extremes, and I think probably did. It looks like next week there will be more information. I have put myself in the moccasins of the several principal players, and attempted to understand any possible bias. Although I think much is left to improve, it is understandable why each has a "dog in the hunt". I would be happy, no thrilled, to have been wrong in every way that may end up damaging the position of anyone, especially the families. Safety is what is left, and the Truth of the matter.