Thankyou for your very detailed and thoughtful post.
I was just about to concede that maybe it was just a misunderstanding or lack of knowledge on my part but then I read BaBy’s post.
I know that BaBy was a former Fast Jet QFI as well as an airline pilot. So I know his brain will likely work in the same way to my own in some respects.
The fact that someone who crosses the boundary between the two worlds also questions your explanation does get me thinking again.
I fully appreciate that when IMC at night the situation the pilots were presented with was confusing and terrifying in equal measure. Who knows what I would have done on that Airbus that day. I’m not a large aircraft pilot of course. However, I know what I would have done in my fast jet. It has happened to me, albeit during the day, and my knowledge of power settings and attitudes meant that I was able to conclude fairly quickly that it was obviously a faulty ASI.
I still can’t quite get my head around the idea that you think they didn’t hold it in a stall just because they didn’t know they were in one.
At a lower altitude in my fast jet if I kept pulling back on the stick it would loop. At 35000’ it would stall. The AI and AoA gauges would tell me that along with airframe buffet and all the other constituents of SABIRS.
A standard stall recovery (relax, max, roll or however else you might brief it) would solve it for me and would surely have saved them also).
Again, I have to admit I have never flown a large aircraft so I must defer to those more experienced than myself. Maybe others can help you or I out here?!
BV