Nemrytter, a rather thorough analysis of the g-data from the FDR shows that no significant turbulence was encountered that would have hampered handling. They DID in fact encounter the icing problem, and if we do a very tight root cause analysis, we discover that without iced-up pitot tubes NONE of the rest follows.
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It isn't as simple as Wx penetration being the cause.
I never said that it was, I was correcting the guy who said that they never encountered intense weather. As I figure you know bad weather doesn't necessarily mean turbulence (+vice-versa) but it can cause other problems - like the icing you mention. Convection can raise warm air to altitude and that can cause the icing problems. Whilst the cloud tops were very cold it looks (based on the data I have) that the temperature at lower altitudes (i.e: ~FL350-400) were quite a bit warmer than normal. This matches the BEA report. What's clear is that it was a rather rare set of circumstances.
To be clear: The Wx was an important factor in the crash, acting as a trigger perhaps, but far from a singular cause. The only reason I posted was to correct the other chap and I definitely didn't mean for it to dominate the discussion.
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The Wx didn't cause that, but poor Wx contributed to it -- right?
Yes, agreed!