Gentlemen
After reading these posts almost daily and very detailed they are.
I'm left with the thought as to the possible cause of the crash as;
Approaching a line of embedded CB's and requesting higher FL was cleared higher but denied deviation of track due traffic.
Climbed at an unbelievable rate of climb which possibly coincided with severe turbulence resulting in structural failure.
This was my initial thought as well, but the relatively tight debris field, photos of the main fuselage structure and the apparently intact and floating radome in fairly good condition would to me seem to indicate that this aircraft impacted fairly intact and more or less on its belly. Now, that said, I don't think the concept can be entirely discounted until more wreckage is recovered and studied. There are a lot of parts of the aircraft that have not yet been recovered, so I think it's premature to leap to any conclusion just yet.
By way of example, here's the wreckage distribution description from the accident report on the 1963 inflight breakup of a Boeing 720 near Miami that was discussed much earlier in this thread:
The main wreckage area was located in a section of the Everglades which was fairly open and flat, with outcroppings of coral rock, marshy water areas, and groves or hummocks of cypress trees irregularly spaced at one-half to one mile intervals. Access to the area from the nearest road, 15 miles away, required over three hours by surface transportation or 15 minutes by helicopter. The wreckage distribution was aligned 080-260 degrees, approximately 1-1/3 miles wide and 15 miles long, indicating in-flight breakup of the aircraft structure. Approximately 90 percent of the wreckage, including all large segments, was found in the most westerly two miles. The remaining portions of wreckage found east of this concentration consisted mainly of light material which was drifted to the east-northeast by the prevailing winds aloft. The most westerly piece of wreckage was the upper part of the rudder, which was used by surveyors as a zero datum point. Approximately 500 feet east of this point were engines Nos. 1, 2, 4, 3, in that order, oriented along a south to north line one-half mile long. Five hundred feet northeast of the No. 3 engine was the cockpit area. Next, approximately 1,500 feet east of the rudder fragment were the outboard portions of both wings Two thousand and seven hundred feet east of the datum point were the main fuselage and wing center sections which landed inverted on a heading of 060 degrees. The tail section was 1,000 feet farther east. Approximately 97 percent of the aircraft was recovered.
Full report here:
DOT Online Database)
There are some similarities here in terms of distances between sections of the aircraft and the longer distances involved with Air Asia are easily explained by drift due to ocean currents.