@Right Way Up
Don't you think that terrain clearance is one aspect that can be discussed to try to test that capacity. The way you phrase it could be extrapolated to any aspect. It would surprise me if that is what you mean to say.
In my view there never is a single root cause. A 4D interrelated chain of events is a better description. Discussing the root cause that you probably refer too must wait till an investigation publishes an extensive set of documents. That's something you might expect from/in a US NTSB investigation docket, but not per se from this multinational investigation.