A couple of posters have mentioned tail strike on takeoff.
DingerX #816
A321 and tailstrikes. A321s have the longest bodies of the A320 family, and tailstrike with some frequency. When they do, they don't strike back at the RPB, but further forward. For example, someone scraped
this a321 pretty bad, with the center of damage just below the Bulk Cargo Door. This means that, even if the 2001 repair were done perfectly, some other tailstrike might have doomed this aircraft. We've seen here the reports of pilots "not hearing" a tailstrike.
Cosmo Beauregard #1095
What if this aircraft over rotated on takeoff? If you take a straight edge and capture the bottom of the main wheels and then rotate the edge along the aft fuselage, I believe we have just located the lower point of the split.
Could a tailstrike on takeoff at Sharm validly be considered as a possible initiating incident in this case? Heavy load and slower lift from a hot runway - not like St. Petersburg.