Chuks said
Transport aircraft are very carefully designed and tested so that I reject the thrust of the argument that stick shakers and stick pushers are somehow unsafe.
I don't think that compendium of articles is contesting the functionality or design of stick-pushers and shakers. As long as the AoA probe hasn't been struck by a ground-handler and not reported (Abidjan A310 crash on take-off and another CONUS take-off accident of a widebody - plus a number of others), then the stick-shaker/pusher will do what it's designed to do.
What that link is overall saying is simply that you can expect that what the Buffalo Q400 pilots did wasn't unexpected - against a background of factual statistics. He backs this up with the NTSB investigator's factual input of 70% of airline pilots tested (and expecting a stall and recovery situation), having responded in exactly the same way that the Q400 captain did.
If that's not a cause for deep concern, what is? Re-read the link matey. You've totally missed the point.
That instinctive contrary response to an extraneous uncommanded flight control input (i.e. a melded stick-shake/stick-push during the rapid deceleration of an unpowered configured level-off)?
Methinks that this human factors handling anomaly (for 70% of the pilot population) needs to be looked at by a battery of clinical psychologists.
It's worth reflecting upon just how much automation has compounded and confused something as fundamental as stall warning and recovery. Reflecting upon the (as yet) unknown cause of the AF447 crash, the Report upon the prior Air Caraibes A330 near accident says:
The picture given by the message RESPECT STALL WARNING AND DISREGARD "RISK OF UNDUE STALL WARNING" STATUS MESSAGE IF DISPLAYED ON ECAM is of someone flying an airplane where the stall warnings are saying that the airplane is stalling, the ECAM screen is telling the pilot to disregard the stall warnings, and the manual is telling the pilot to disregard the ECAM and heed the stall warnings, but the pilot doesn't believe that the airplane is stalling. It's like having your chief pilot, training manager and captain all on the flight deck, telling you do different things. The next part of the Air Caraibes memo then analyzes the event and the warnings in terms of the Airbus protections offered by ALTERNATE LAW, NORMAL LAW, and DIRECT LAW, detailing what was and lost or changed in response to the various alarms, such as the F/CTL ADR DISAGREE. He points out that the checklists contradict each other when the unreliable speed indication checklist says, RELY ON THE STALL WARNING THAT COULD BE TRIGGERED IN ALTERNATE OR DIRECT LAW. IT IS NOT AFFECTED BY UNRELIABLE SPEEDS, BECAUSE IT IS BASED ON ANGLE OF ATTACK, while the icing checklist warns UNDUE STALL WARNINGS MAY MAINLY OCCUR IN THE CASE OF AN AOA DISCREPANCY. (AoA is angle of attack, measured by vanes outside the aircraft, which in severe icing can also be unreliable).
(With the autothrust selected off and the crew confident that they were not in a stall, no stall recovery inputs were made. Which is good, because [as the AF447 pilots possibly found], the result of stall recovery inputs when you are not in a stall could be an overspeed, and in alternate law the high speed protection warnings are reduced).
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