This makes good sense:
[E.g., perhaps they unknowingly deviated into more severe weather, or got caught in a newly developing cell -- and then an still-unknown event (pilot error? systems error? structural failure?) became the probable cause of the accident.]
Discussing meteorology for a moment, convection is often fueled by daytime heating. The AirAsia event happened at sunrise. Was the convective system particularly unusual/the monsoon process particularly energetic? It seems that the AirAsia flight may have self-diverted into a rapidly developing thunderhead that blossomed up into the flight path at a rate that wasn't evident on the plane's radar. Unusual to have so much convective energy at sunrise but not impossible. It seems that recorded images of weather radar for this event merit further scrutiny.