Originally Posted by Bearfoil
Rumour only: The aircraft "protected" itself into the Ocean. allegedly.
(...)
It "protected" itself with its programmed limit, AoA and 'G' prox, perhaps disallowing a nose up that would have avoided contact with the sea, in spite of PF's commands.
DF wrong.
If protections worked as planned, we wouldn't have this thread, there would be one more A320 flying around and there would be 7 men more in our ranks.
Both AoA inputs to flight control computers froze at 5° sometime into the flight and remained constant until the crash, which disabled AoA protection. While the aeroplane was slowing down (to test alpha prot), stab got stuck at full nose up deflection. Stall warning fired, crew recovered from first stall but due to stab position and TOGA:
Originally Posted by BEA interim report
At 15 h 45 min 44 s the maximum recorded values were: pitch 57 degrees, altitude 3,800 ft.
The speed was below 40 kt.
At 15 h 46 min 06.8 s, the record stopped.
Issue was insufficient pitch authority, but not insufficient nose up due to AoA or G protections, rather it was insufficient nose-down due to stuck THS.
Hopefully, BEA will be able to answer how and why did it happen.