Any Airbus guys out there care to post some details on the rudder limiter system and yaw damp system of the A300? Specifically, authority of yaw damp system and mode of rudder limiting the aircraft was in at 220 kts. (?configuration - were flaps fully retracted).
If the vertical stab did begin to move with the failure of one attach point, the yaw damp system would attempt to keep the aircraft straight to it's max authority. There has been some conjecture that the pilots overstressed the tail in attempting to recover (hardly probable), but the yaw damp system could have provided the torsional loads to cause the ultimate failure of an already compromised structure.