If the captain was on his break, then, the most experienced F/O would have been in the right hand seat. That's AF SOP for long haul crew relief so that the one in charge of let's say an emergency descent does it from the seat he is used to.
To tell you the truth, given the catastrophic system meltdowns, I can't see myself being able to fly the aircraft in a such a weather and no attitude indicator.
I am not sure about this. What if AF nominates IFR? In the worst case scenario the 600h on type F/O would have been in the RHS and the 2600h one in the LHS... What if AF stipulates that only the RH seated F/O can be in command...
The cheese holes could have been very much aligned even before the systems started to fail...
I would appreciate if an AF colleague can enlighten us about what actually are the SOPs and how stringently are they applied
