protectthehornet,
Most of the times I tend to agree with your comments but I cannot believe you actually believe on this one:
first off, my friend, an airbus guy, says that maybe the crew was fooling around with the parking brake switch in flight.
which I find quite incredible. First of all, because if one "plays" with the parking brake switch in the air, it will activate the Master Caution and the ECAM will display "Parking Brake On" (if memory serves me well). There is no chance to
unintentionally leave the Parking Brake switched On, except if one
intentionally pushes the ECAM "Emergency Clear" push-button to make it disappear from the WD/SD and latter on forgets to "Recall" it or switch the Parking Brake to Off...
If this was the case, those pilots could be facing serious consequences... and without a prelim report, I really prefer to believe that something else must have happened before launching some sort of anathema against our colleagues of profession.