Machinbird;
Thanks for the response. Agree, interesting topic but won't take it further as indeed it doesn't apply here.
Awaiting photos and/or the FDR to see the position of the reversers and thrust levers. Lomapaseo's photos do seem to show low rotational speed in that engine.
Also, I'm thinking of the amount of destruction of the airframe in the TAM A320 overrun accident at Sao Paulo - it was almost complete but for the empennage but here much of the fuselage remains in a single piece, looking more like the Etihad A340-600 31kt ground-test collision with a blast fence at Toulouse, though the Red Wings aircraft fractured/separated at the cockpit and empennage. The lower cockpit area and the fracturing of the fuselage dissipated much of the forward energy but the fuselage remained largely intact.
Understand the various calculations showing high speed but to me from the available photos the wreckage doesn't look like a high-speed, (=> 100kts) overrun. Perhaps the level of destruction in the TAM case was the vertical face of a concrete building while in the Red Wings overrun the ground was sloped and the same energy (about 100kts) was indeed absorbed by the undulating ground and the burm leading up to the freeway. In any case, we'll see what the speed was when/if the FDR data is eventually made available.