Are there a subset of failures where ACARS would stop but all flight critical systems continue to function.
Here are a few thoughts:
1. Lets give credit to the men on the flight deck that they were able to establish pitch/power to take manual control of the flight
2. Lets give credit to the machine and its designers that the failure of pitots (albeit all three of them) will not prompt the airplane to simply fall out of the sky.
3. Lets give credit to the men and women of the search operation.
4. Finally, lets give credit to BEA for its analysis.
If we do the above, we have an important piece of evidence we cannot overlook. The aircraft is not in the area we looked in and so, she continued flying for far longer than we are expecting.
Lets say the pilots established pitch/power. What next? Is it possible to re-engage automatics in the degraded law once they are out of the woods. Or, were they left with flying pitch/power without KIAS on the night flight all the way to Paris. Under such circumstances, would they have opted to turn back and fly to the nearest land mass. Would they have tried to ditch?