BOAC
Do you deduce that they deliberately 'looked' at the HYD page
Good question - no thoughts either way now, although my previous post assumes they selected it, it's just one of the events that the CVR might explain a little. The HYD key is next to the F/CTL key, but if that was the target I would expect it to appear almost immediately after the wrong selection was realised.
Re the survivabilty of 50°pitch, to me it all hinges on the THS - was it stuck or did they just not move it (Direct Law = Manual pitch trim)? With the trim in a more normal position and the a/c in Direct Law a recovery should have been possible - and they probably would not have reached that attitude and the resultant low speed in the first place.