Ask yourself this question......If the Air France Pilots had maintained cruise throttle settings....maintained cruise pitch angle.....maintained heading........what would have been the outcome?
Would not RadAlt and GPS have been other sources of height data? The GPS would have been giving them Ground Speed....which if they had been monitoring that they would have had a rough idea of airspeed. Remember they were over the ocean nearly in the middle of the Atlantic....heck for that matter....would not OAT have been a rough guide to Altitude?
What was the weather ahead of them......good enough for a Visual Descent and Landing?
Rule one in all emergencies is "THINK!"
Last edited by SASless; 16th June 2012 at 14:18.