This is where I would put my money as well, for the same reasons. That, or the mechanics screwed something up that led to a major problem structurally either directly due to their screw up or because the pilots mishandled their screw up. Those 737-800‘s are very reliable planes as long as you don’t get too far outside the design envelope.
You might be able to fly with a good portion of your vertical stabilizer missing, but you can’t fly without your horizontal stabilizer. No horizontal stab = a wild ride to impact. If that photo is legit, there’s definitely something wrong with the tail, both verticals and horizontal stab.
Hopefully they can get the flight recorders as I doubt the moment by moment by moment telemetry of a Chinese airliner is being monitored like ours are on the newer planes. A rudder or yaw damper malfunction could cause this if it went full rudder deflection back and forth a couple times; the vertical stab would depart the plane and they would likely loose control in a way that could over stress the horizontal stab. That would be similar to the American 587 crash except American was closer to the ground and the tail coming off was pilot induced out of ignorance and a lack of training.
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