Originally Posted by Ancient Greek
The crew attempted to conduct a test at low level despite the test specification warning that the test MUST be carried out above 10000 ft AGL because failure could result in a stall which could take a lot of altitude to recover. The test failed. The aircraft stalled. They had insufficient height to recover.
False.
A. They flew into a full stall, with quite a wing drop
and recovered
They recovered from that stall, loosing 1.000 ft. or so (one thousand, not ten). Speed was up, wings were almost level, they were climbing back to initial altitude. For a few seconds, everything was looking as being under control. They used quite normal recovery actions : stick forward, "throttle" forward. Student pilot skill.
Next immediate required student pilot skill was to trim forward.
This is were the crew first failed.
Why?
Because :
- They were not used to operate manual trim, since AB is on auto-trim in normal operation. Thousands of flying hours without ever touching a trim switch or a trim wheel ... So the habit (and the skill) of using the trim "manualy" was lost.
- They were not aware (obviously) that the auto-trim feature was inop.
I see here a systemic failure :
- automation set one step too far, reducing piloting skill below that of a 5 hours student pilot.
- lack of pertinent training
When the trim upset put the aircraft in an unusual "nose high" attitude, the skill required to recover was at the commercial pilot level : "recovery from unusual attitude" (visualy or by instruments) :
- roll to high bank,
- reduce power/thrust
- and level off carefully when the nose start dropping
This requires training, and recurrent training, and specific training on each aircraft type. This requires good pilots and good instructors and good training programs.
It seems to me that the lack of flying skill was one big factor in the fatal issue ...
Strange, when one consider the captain was qualified as TRI/TRE ...