Mr Optimistic (5th january):
a) the availability of attitude information to the crew
Just in case you have missed this 'Finding' in BEA's 2nd Interim Report:
None of the messages present in the CFR indicate loss of displays or inertial information (attitudes);
b)the time taken for a 'deep stalled' descent to gl from 37k ft
Although not 'deep stalled', it may be of interest that D.P.Davies' excellent book 'Handling the big jets' contains an emergency descent profile for (an early model of) the B747 from 30k ft to 15k ft in 2min10sec. Elsewhere in his book (dated 1967) he writes : "some aeroplanes will achieve descent rates of up to 14,000 ft. per minute, and 9,000 ft. per minute is quite common". Mr. Davies was Chief Test Pilot for the ARB, the predecessor of CAA, the U.K. civil aviation regulatory agency.
Regards,
HN39