Rananim
My god! You mean an 80 ton aircraft travelling downwards at over 100 ft/s doesn't immediately start going up again as soon as you pull the stick back?
No it is NOT true that the aircraft didn't respond to the pilot's input. At least not according to the official report I'm looking at. I don't know what report
Chuck Hog has been reading, but I guess there's always someone who wants to flog that tired old Airbus/Scarebus theme again. It really is getting a bit boring and a bit tiresome.
The report clearly states that nose down pitch trim is automatically applied to counteract the tendency to pitch up when TOGA thrust setting is selected. Now, I'm not an Airbus jockey (actually, I'm not any kind of a jockey), but could an Airbus operator confirm that this is normal operation please?
Even if the trim was acting counter to the elevators, I rather suspect that full aft stick deflection would have considerably more authority than trim. Again, I'm no expert. Maybe an Airbus pilot could comment?
Here are some salient excerpts from the official report that should lay your fears to rest. Unless, that is, you subscribe to some conspiracy theory that Airbus are somehow involved in a big cover-up and have doctored or influenced the official report.
Approximately 2 seconds after the GPWS warnings began, FDR data indicated movement of the captain’s side stick aft of the neutral position, with a maximum aft deflection of approximately 11.7 degrees reached. However, the FDR data showed that this nose-up command was not maintained and that subsequent movements never exceeded 50% of full-aft availability.
If you were fighting against a control system that was ignoring your commanded input and flying you into the ground, wouldn't you be yanking back on that sidestick for all you're worth and not letting go until the GPWS shut the hell up? I think even the most rabidly anti Airbus among you will have to admit that this was a CFIT incident.
The report continues:
During one of the simulator sessions, the 360º turn and go-around manoeuvres were performed to approximate the flight path and sequence and timing of events recorded on the FDR recovered from A40-EK. However, in these scenarios, the pilots were instructed to recover with full aft stick movement at the onset of the ground proximity warning system (GPWS) “whoop, whoop, pull up” alert. In this scenario, the simulator recovered with about 300 feet of altitude loss.
In the following scenario, a half-back stick command was applied instead of a full back stick command. The delay between the GPWS warning and the stick command was approximately 4 seconds. In this scenario, the simulator recovered with about 650 feet of altitude loss.
In another scenario a recovery was performed by the co-pilot after he verified that the captain took no action to recover from the GPWS “whoop, whoop, pull up” alert. The co-pilot depressed the priority button on his sidestick, announced his control override, and applied full aft side stick input. In this scenario, the simulator recovered with about 400 feet of altitude loss.
Now admittedly that was the simulator, but the FDR did not show anything like this kind of response from either pilot. The PNF didn't even touch his sidestick during the entire accident sequence, so he clearly wasn't aware of the situation.
[edited to correct VS estimate at first nose-up command input]