Originally Posted by
Murexway
Don't know if it's true, but I saw an article yesterday saying that Grieg Feith (former NTSB "Mud Stud") mentioned that "the autopilot was still engaged when the aircraft was on its rapid descent, meaning that the pilots were fighting the automation". As an old timer, I can't imagine sitting there below 10,000, watching the throttles go to 100% and the nose dropping to 49 degrees nose low without disconnecting the automation, deploying the spoilers, and pulling for all I'm worth.
"Disconnecting" the autopilot on a 767 is trivial - just push or pull with a few pounds of force and it disconnects (with an aural alert in case it's inadvertent). Similarly it takes about 2 lbs. force to move a throttle (4 lbs for both throttles) regardless of what the autothrottle is doing. It's also pretty easy to differentiate an autothrottle movement from a manual movement on the DFDR. There is a max A/T rate (six degrees/second at the throttle lever IIRC) so about ten seconds to go from idle to full forward (obviously less if the throttle is at an intermediate setting).