[TXnMA]

The Air Safety Net vertical speed RADAR plot is copyrighted, but you can take a look at it here. Those last 25 seconds of violent porpoising (or tumbling) must have been hell on all those poor passengers. There must have been a total loss of elevator control (or horizontal stabilizers themselves -- or the entire tail section) to turn that flying airplane into a falling leaf in seconds...

And all the Flightradar24 data for the last minute of the flight -- including groundspeed and altitude plots are available here.

After 04/06:12:57, the ground speed dropped precipitously from 408 knots to 62 knots in 16 (sixteen) seconds. That thing went from a plane in flight to a porpoising, tumbling, falling -- and probably disintegrating -- mass of rubble in a quarter of a minute.

~~~~~~~~

I'm going to to say prayers of sympathy for those poor folks (and, probably have nightmares) tonight...

[wrench]

The pics of the tail on the ground do not show the horizontal stabilizers still attached or near the remaining tail.

Structural failure resulting in loss of the horizontal stabilizers can cause the excursions noted.

Also, the main fuselage appears to have impacted flat and inverted, while the tail impacted upright. Loss of HSs usually causes the nose to tuck and aircraft to go inverted, sometimes resulting in a flat spin.