gums, thanks (sorry about the CFIT, losing a brother pilot always hurts) for the amplification. From what the BEA has released, it appears that the THS commands to nose up were from the side stick commands ... but if that was in response to a low speed stability input, a previous trimmed condition, or anything else (or a combination) remains unclear to me. Will hope for clarity in due course.
I am still not sure how well the BEA analysis can suss out from the data available just how turbulent (or smooth) the airmass was just before, during, and just after the initial upset. Perhaps their next release will have some more clarification on that, as flying in turbulent air not infrequently adds to the number of control inputs (particularly if the auto trim in one channel or another is not in play). Working near cells that big, you are bound to have some vertical movement of the airmass, or run across some. The question is, at what magnitude?