Pilot disorientation in IFR conditions?
CC
A proper recovery from what looks like it was a full stall (with perhaps double flameouts) would undoubtedly involve some rather uncomfortable maneuvers in the recovery process (some abrupt pitch, yaw, and roll changes), and possibly zero, or even negative Gs for a bit.
And, if there was a double flameout as an extra added bonus, that would increase the pilot pucker factor even more.
This would be rough for any pilot, but if those folks had been trained only in slow reacting passenger-type aircraft, they had a trying experience ahead of them.
One for which they might not have been fully prepared.
Airbus pitot tube icing?
Sudden Jihad Syndrome after finding out there were so many Christians on board?
Airbusitis
This is what happens when your inexperienced pilots do nothing except enter data unto the flight computer and do little hand flying.
Sounds like the Air France flight that pitched into the Atlantic after the speed indications failed. The pilots were so confused, they spent their final minutes doing exactly the opposite of what every new pilot is taught.
Sounds to me that they may have encountered the same problem as the Airbus that crashed off the coast of Brazil a few years back. IOW, frozen airspeed sensors giving the computer-controlled flight system a nervous breakdown. The triply-redundant FCS cannot handle more than one bad channel.
This points to pilot error possibly induced by misreading of or faulty instrument readings.
Barrel roll?
“Watch this y’all...”
http://www.aviationtoday.com/regions/usa/More-Pitot-Tube-Incidents-Revealed_72414.html#.VL6Ij3R0yUk
Airbus pitot tube problems.