An interesting thread which is perhaps getting to the root of the problem which is a lack of understanding of how diverse human responses are to sensory overload.
My first introduction was with Tony Farrell doing a test of unusual attitudes under the hood on limited panel where he took control as I was about to tail slide the PA28.
https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk...bomber-command
Thats the man in question ex mosquitoes DFC and unlike many of my instructors he allowed students to take a flying machine to its limits. My senses were so overloaded that nearly 50 years on I haven't a clue as to our attitudes.
Shortly afterwards I had a chop test with Duff Mitchell who also had a DFC..only aircraft flying as weather was P poor..again under the hood and a practice GCA which I landed from whilst still wearing the head gear..cross wind and turbulence but it taught me to forget sensory perception.
Fast forward 25 years which included teaching limited aerobatics, a lot of spinning and mountain gliding including being knocked semi concious; I did an AFF and jumped out of an aircraft at 12,000ft..had no recollection of a falling sensation and found it frankly boring.
I was then asked to find out how a colleague had died; he had 25 years of airliners, a similar amount of hang gliders but like myself at that time around a year paragliding. He had a collapse at 200ft agl and was looking up at his wing when he hit the ground instead of throwing his reserve. A few years later I had a similar series of collapses and lost over 1,000ft in seconds whilst looking up at the wing. My senses told me I had lost around 100ft.
The next year I carried out a SIV course at Annecy with Flyeo and its boss Fabio; a small, quietly spoken young frenchman. He taught me more in two hours about how the muscles and senses act with acceleration than what I had learnt in my flying career.
From that I can understand how PF in AF 447 apparently kept back pressure on the stick.
Yesterday arrived the latest addition of Cross Country magazine which includes a study of paraglider pilots deploying their reserve parachute on a zip wire. Scientifically carried out with prior attempted sensory overload before the pilots were released. The technique was to delay their release whilst carrying out an oral reasoning task plus an "unusual" physical upset. The reserve deployments were delayed and sometimes completely erroneous.
I had one emergency smoke training in a DC9 mock up where I had to find a baby; not only a claustrophobic mask/ dense smoke but the sounds of a baby crying which disorientated me.
I failed miserably as I did in the hypoxia exercise carried out in the decompression chamber at Portsmouth.
The industry has bought two crew operation, advanced simulator use at the expense of real flying and packaged the product up with automatics and checklists..this accident won't be the last that is blamed on pilot error!
As to GA button, a mate who was the chief trainer on the 400 hit it when he went to take the auto throttle out on short final. His copilot said he caught three of the levers but with an outer at full chat the 74 did something he hadn't seen before. It was written up in an air safety report.