Machinbird;
'm not sure Do Nothing was a valid course of action either.
By "do nothing", I didn't mean literally sit there, hands-off doing nothing
, I meant that the airplane had to be hand-flown like a real airplane, maintaining, (not changing) pitch and power, and kept that way in stable flight until things settled down, and the checklists were called for, etc.
JD-EE, take a look at the BEA Reports, (first one I think) for the UAS drill and checklist.
At the MSA [Minimum Safe Altitude around the departure airport], and the aircraft is well away, either in the climb or in cruise and above FL100, one doesn't "wait" for a while to do the drill...one does
not do the drill at all. One "levels off", and begins troubleshooting, which means get out the checklists for pitch and power to stabilize the airplane in cruise. There is not sufficient data to determine if this was done or not - we just have the back-stick and the climb.
Turbine D;
I've slowed down to turbulence penetration speed many times. The power change is minimal, the speed change from M0.83 to M0.80 is, (on the road & going from memory) about 9 or 10 kts. Cruise CAS was around 273kts and the stall speed IIRC, was around 196 kts - Bump speed was around 265 kts or so, so both power and speed were a long way (in level cruise flight) from permitting a possible "rapid" degradation of flight conditions, even in heavy turbulence, (which they weren't in). However, a pitch-up of ten degrees at that altitude is unthinkable as the result would be known intuitively.
I hope that helps...