paweas,
the two Romanian incidents (in fact 1 incident & 1 accident ) were both pre FBW A310.
Nonetheless lack of pilot comprehension of what the machine was doing figured heavily.
In the Orly incident the aircraft was auto trimming & the pilot was applying elevator in opposition causing the aircraft to trim even more. This resulted in attitudes very similar to the XL accident & an accident was avoided by the smallest margin.
The accident occured at Bucharest on departure when the A/T only retarded one throttle when climb thrust was demanded .The A/T advanced thrust on one engine & continued to throttle back the other & the aircraft ended up rolling over on it's back & crashing with the A/P allowed to invert the aircraft into the ground whilst the crew sat there & watched it. It was believed that the Capt may have been incapacitated at the time.
If not, that is indeed a generous description.
So, even that level of automation was causing problems, not a surprise that nowadays the levels are not fully understood,even more disturbingly, we don't seem to have learned the lessons from all these years ago. Incidentaly,the circumstances of both of these previous incidents are at least partially reflected in the outcome of XL & THY.