It does seem pretty weird. If it really hit the water flat, the only thing I can imagine is that they didn't realize the plane stalled until it was too late. If

It does seem pretty weird. If it really hit the water flat, the only thing I can imagine is that they didn't realize the plane stalled until it was too late. If the turbulence is really strong, then I can imagine it would be hard to tell a stall from general turbulence, at least for a while. Since the margin between unsafely high speed and stall speed is very small in strong turbulence, at high altitudes, and maybe the fuel situation made them fly higher than they otherwise would?