Try as I might, I've never been able to fully to understand AB's various 'modes'
I wonder then what you are doing here.
I believe that another possibility is that the systems would have considered any setting above 'Idle' as being the next detent up (i.e. CLB).
Wrong. Seven degrees out of the CL detent would have been enough to satisfy the *near idle*requirement.
The possibilities are that the pilot may indeed have left the lever in CLB; or he may have pulled it back to near 'Idle', but not AT 'Idle'; or he may have knocked it forward while reaching over it to get hold of and lift the reverser latch on No. 1.
The *out of idle* requirement is then
fifteen degrees. You see , three times more value to be out than to be in *Idle*.
I believe that according to the FDR, the pilot(s)' first step was to recycle the spoiler switch. That's pretty strong evidence that (having got reverse thrust) they thought that they had a spoiler malfunction
So the FDR is reliable when it suits your arguments but otherwise subject to doubt ?...Strange way of reasoning.
my understanding is that applying the brakes at 140 knots would have been next to useless (and could very well have caused more problems than it solved).
I hope that's not the sort of training they give their pilots.
These sorts of technical *pearls* would be really, but really, hilarious if the main subject hadn't been the loss of nearly two hundred lives.