It is also speculated that the A/THR had possibly already narrowed the upper aerodynamic margin just before it was auto-disengaged along with the A/P when the cascade of ECAM alerts began.
If that proves to have been the case, we would be back again discussing similar issues to Turkish/Schipol - in an opposite sense though, both in height & speed. Namely - unnoticed degrading margins due to automatic functions, albeit in AF447, the aircraft would have been at fault.
However, if this is a credible scenario, how would the a/c gain speed? More thrust - that's where any crew monitoring function would/should have (been able to) pick it up?
1) How would you see that increasing Mach as displayed thrust change - or would you the steady rise against varying thr. levels (assuming some turbulence) ?
2) Is there any reporting of discrepancy between Inertial and ASI rates of change (at least in the longitudinal axis) - e.g. unaccountable apparent accelerations
===== On the general drift of inherent dangers at cruise at M .8/.82 @35k & 205 tonne). ===
PJ2 paints a very different picture than the linked (& somewhat scary) analyis from UNCTUOUS. The incipient speed-rise situation above might explain it, as perhaps would
extreme turbulence. It does sound like it would have to have been a
combination of turbulence + poor speed control, from his judgement on the matter?