I think we can safely say the weather conditions were a major factor in causing the crash. Was the aircraft a significant factor in the survival rate of the people on board? Pure speculation (human nature I guess) but would this crash have been more/less survivable in say an ATR or a Dash 8 etc.
Below are some accidents involving the basic aircraft type, you would have thought the survival rates would have been better?
On 12 June 1980 a Metro II operating as Air Wisconsin Flight 965 suffered engine failure following massive water ingestion during a thunderstorm; the crew lost control and crashed near Valley, Nebraska. Both crew members and 11 passengers died, two passengers survived with serious injuries.[21]
A Fairchild Metro III operating as Trans-Colorado Airlines Flight 2286 under the Continental Express brand, crashed near Bayfield, Colorado on January 19, 1988. Both crew members and seven of the 15 passengers died. Of the surviving passengers only one received no injuries.[22]
Skylink Airlines Flight 070, On September 26, 1989, a Fairchild Metro III was on a scheduled flight from Vancouver(YVR) to Terrace (YXT), British Columbia with two pilots and five passengers on board. The aircraft crashed one quarter mile to the west of Terrace Airport while the crew was attempting to carry out a missed approach in IFR conditions. The aircraft was destroyed by the impact and a post-crash fire. All seven occupants were fatally injured in the crash.
# Propair Flight 420, a Metro II flying from Dorval International Airport (now Montreal-Trudeau International Airport) to Peterborough Airport in Peterborough, Ontario on June 18, 1998, experienced a wing/engine fire during the initial climb. It attempted an emergency landing at Mirabel, but crashed near the runway threshold, in part due to a landing gear failure. The two pilots and the nine passengers on board were killed.[25]
A Transair Metro 23 crashed near Lockhart River, north of Cooktown, Queensland in Australia on May 7, 2005. A total of 15 people died in what is, as of December 2009, the worst airline crash in Australia since the 1960s.