At what point is the High Speed Protection nullified?
My interpretation of the intended thrust of CONFiture's post on High-speed Protection follows.
As Normal Law would've been in play when (and if) the A330 hit Mcrit, for these protections to have been then overcome (and an upset occur), what particular anomaly could've been involved at the same point or as an immediate preliminary (i.e. to cause a transitioning to a degraded law - and kill the protections)?
It's becoming a bit "chicken and eggish".
but IMHO, it's looking more and more like it would've been the developing airspeed splits that started the downgrade in FC Laws and caused autopilot and autothrust to jump out. That would have instantly placed the pilot in the cross-hairs for an upset, for all the usual reasons:
a. surprise,
b. unfamiliarity,
c. loss of airspeed read-out,
d. engine parameter screen not being displayed,
e. a THS out-of-trim pitch-down into a high mach (possibly compounded by a misinterpretation of the situation as a stall - and max power and a lower nose attitude being selected),
f. or alternatively, mere distraction due to the aural and visual alarms allowing an unusual attitude to develop. Aircraft at height under manual control in ALT1 would be inherently unstable, particularly if manual thrust was changed significantly to affect the trim-state.
This scenario tends to accord more with what's known of the prior instances of pitot icing at high levels.