Originally Posted by
megan
As did I during periods of maneuvering, auto functions & trim punched off on downwind for landing. In Ara's case that would have been the mode I would have been flying, with the automatics set to take over should they be required. We were a VMC operation that did plenty of scud running, and dare I say plenty of far less than legal low level IMC at 300 - 500', as Gulli can attest.
In the report of the Bahamas accident It was noted that the FTR was held in throughout the take off. A well lit environment to complete darkness.
I would hypothesize that if Ara was following a road then he was in ATT or SAS mode and using the FTR to make inputs, almost certainly not coupled. Encountering deteriorating viz he depressed the FTR to initiate a climb, a combination of poor instrument scan and task saturation caused him to tense and hold the FTR allowing an unusual attitude to develop.
It is not called the button of death in IMC conditions for nothing. How many times have we seen this occur in the sim?