Sorry
Garrison, but you must add the pitch attitude to the AoA to get the descent angle.
At impact, we know the BEA figures for 107 knots horizontal and vertical. Another contributor came up with same numbers I did, which was a basic 45 degree flight path with a 16 deg pitch attitude at impact. So AoA would have been around 61 degrees. When I use 107 knots vertical, I get about 10,800 feet per minute vertical vector, which seems to agree with BEA's numbers.
The last recorded values were a pitch attitude of 16.2 degrees nose-up, a roll angle of 5.3 degrees left and a vertical speed of -10,912 ft/min.
I point out the close agreement with my back-of-the-envelope calculations concerning vertical velocity
I can't find a BEA data point of 16 degrees pitch attitude and 35 - 40 degrees AoA in their report.
more on "trust your AoA" later for those debating its value when airspeed is FUBAR.