Svarin says:
F/CTL PRIM 1 FAULT
F/CTL SEC 1 FAULT
The BEA states that these are either failures or commanded shutdowns.
If they were commanded (turned off by pilot action), one has to remember these switches are guarded, with a very obvious and specific grid-like guard.
You cannot switch them off by accident. But then, why in dark cold Hell would they have felt the need to switch both off ?
If they were failures, then why in the watery depths of Hell did both these computers fail ?
During many years of instruction I've noted that neophytes faced with sudden unexpected dramatic developments will tend to do something/anything that suddenly springs to mind. If the two F/O's were alone in the cockpit and the autopilot kicked out (an unnoticed step possibly?) and the aircraft suddenly pitched up violently, how's their thought processes?
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Are they likely to think
"Flight Control failure, must reboot PRIM". "Oops omigawd, that didn't work, let's try rebooting SEC". ???
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The stimulation of sudden unexpected developments (like a sudden pitch-up into buffet) can promote an irrationality that (although seemingly desperate, uncalled for and even nonsensical in the cold hard light of hindsight) may seem quite logical to an overstimulated mind at the time, once in extremis. Things well beyond one's experience often do kick you into
silly country. I once had a tip-tank go skew-whiff off the end of a jet trainer wing during a Porteus loop (shims had been left out following an NDI inspection), and in the flick maneuver the tip-tank's displacement threw us into a violent inverted spin. After about 14,000ft of very wild gyrations and extreme upside-down g excursions and all sorts of ineffectually momentary stick, throttle and rudder inputs on my part, the aircraft recovered itself.... just before a Martin Baker letdown would've been required. Unexpected? You betcha. Logical responses on my part? Not really, although I was quite distracted by having to continually convince my oppo not to depart prematurely. I think a bang in the backside whilst inverted would have been spinally unappreciated.... but the urgent imperative to do something/anything is always paramount in such dynamic situations (IMHO).
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Did they go for the reboot solution on AF447? We'll never know. However I can recall sitting at the holding point in Rome Fiumicino back in the early 90's for around 20mins whilst the pilot
continually rebooted his computer in an A340-300, all the while keeping us down back in the picture. I felt quite apprehensive about that being a cogent solution. Maybe it's a mindset that Airbus pilots get into?
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