So -- the airplane continued on for miles while in a flat spin?
How about --- the wind blew the tail off, it flew for a while and then entered a flat spin.
The problem with that is that because of the swept wing design, it would roll over as soon as a yaw motion started because the wind blew the vertical fin off.
The spinning would cause parts such as engines, to depart the airplane in various directions resulting in the dispersed pattern shown in the diagram.
The pattern is very similar to the A320 that crashed after departing New York, where the intact vertical fin was located away from the other parts.
later reading
the VS was found SEVEN miles from a majority of fuselage wreckage.
Indeed, the MASS of the aircraft sans VS would continue ‘forward’ [momentum] much more so than the low mass VS.
They were somewhere between FL 320 and 370 when all this occurred.
Seven miles is a plausible separation based on a high altitude structural failure.
Starboard outer aileron was also found a good distance from the crash site ‘lump.’
It all seems to be consistent with a spin to ‘port’; and the integrity of some of the debris points to a relatively low VERTICAL speed impact. That could indicate the fuselage did indeed flat spin onto the surface of the ocean (supported by vertical crushing skeletal fractures found in SOME of the bodies) **OR** the aircraft began to disintegrate in flight and portions of it landed flat. Note well the VERY ODDLY intact galley section found floating — relatively undamaged considering its low-mass construction — indicates the galley could have ‘floated down’ as an extant object.
WRT the roll over. I agree.
Yaw to port (for some reason); followed by a roll to port; etc etc would point to an ensuing “lawn dart” crash ... since the crew would NOT be able to recover the aircraft.
It’s just SO odd that so much of the air frame was BROADLY dispersed, yet not splintered as would be consistent with a high-speed impact into the ocean. That’s why I keep coming back to an in-air [ partial] disintegration of the aircraft AFTER losing the tail; AFTER the crew lost the aircraft.