Is it possible they had no idea that the mountain was there? Trying to get below could cover to look for an emergency landing spot?................
The debris field looks very different from an impact. That type of field projects in the direction of flight. This is scattered across ravines, with no “shadowing” like happens in an impact (where the debris is not found in lower places in the direction of flight).
A vertical impact shatters like this, but it stays very confined. 2km is too big for vertical impact, and this shows the small pieces that only disintegration can achieve.
So, if not vertical, it disintegrated in flight. For disintegration it has to be enough energy to shatter most, if not all, close to the same time. Based upon the radar returns (which might simply be an average of the flight path, and if so invalid), a moderate explosion that took out the nose of the aircraft would allow it to continue flying, and eventually in thicker air the airspeed would “peel back” the remainder of the aircraft in very small pieces like this.
That is just a theory, but most certainly this is not an impact debris field.
There were only high clouds.