The Real Problem
It seems to me lately that what everyone on this site seems to forget or ignore is what got this flight into the mess in the first place. They went dead on into a thunderstorm. And shortly after, pitots iced up, auto pilot and throttles clicked off, airspeed info out, and then a zoom climb, out of airspeed, in a stall condition, with the controls innefective, and out of ideas.
With all that, was the crew confused? Were they trained for that? Was it turbulent? What is the AF policy regarding thunderstorm avoidance? Make small steady movements. How, if you've never hand-flown the aircraft in smooth air? Has anyone ever been trained for stall recovery in a deep stall?These seem to be the questions we should be addressing.