FullWings
you can almost feel the time/commercial pressure building up. You end up in the absurd situation that you attempt something as a group that you would have never attempted as an individual.
Have a look at the CRM book, and it's certainly not commercial pressure...
That the cockpit set-up was a bit abnormal is saying the least as you've also noticed that (page 43) the ANZ pilot actively participated in the tests (Granted, just the "systems" test on the ECAM ) but still, it could have been done by either pilot or an engineer...
Who really was in charge ?
What stands out, I feel, is that when test pilots "test" something, they are prepared for that test to fail: indeed, they are *expecting* it to fail in a multitude of ways, having extensively researched the subject.
That has been the argument of a few of us for some time, but we cannot, with the data we have, rule out the possibility of a technical failure that prevented them from recovering from their predicament.