The story makes it pretty clear that the junior First Officer screwed up by stalling the plane and keeping the nose up all of the way down. Elevator trim tab had nothing to do with it.
You are correct, poor piloting killed everyone.
Expect to see more of this as years past. We now have “digital aircraft operators” not pilots. They have little ability to operate the aircraft manually. Take all the instrument panel toys and eye candy away from them and they might as well kiss their ass good bye if in true IMC conditions.
Some of the problem is in the new mindset of the aircraft engineers, but most of the problem is the pilots refusing to remain proficient in rudimentary flight skills.
That aircraft can safely fly with no airspeed indicators with nothing more than the attitude indicator and the engine power controls. It is right there in the aircraft ops manual, and has been used several times in the past in similar situations by experienced and well trained pilots.
The fact that the pilots are told (ingrained) that they CANNOT stall the aircraft is the root problem, IMO.
They simply did not believe that it was possible and assumed an instrument failure. Nobody ever mentioned it when the alarm was blaring and the stick shaker was going off. Whatever you are taught, the stick shaker always tells the truth and one does not disregard it, EVER!
It’s from wiki so you probably won’t believe it, but here goes.
“The trimmable horizontal stabilizer (THS) moved from 3 to 13 degrees nose-up in about 1 minute, and remained in that latter position until the end of the flight.”