Originally Posted by
Safety Concerns
The NTSB statement was completely unnecessary if the aircraft manual control inputs had remained within safe limits throughout the ditching. The reality is the system intervened to aid a perfect landing. In fact some have suggested that the FE protections allowed the crew to trade every available knot for a reduction in vertical speed.
That first sentence isn't really true. The control laws are significantly different between Normal and Direct laws, and I would imagine that while Direct Law probably gives Level 2 handling qualities, Normal law is undoubtedly Level 1, and may even be a "1" on the Cooper-Harper scale.. So even if the envelope protection features were never active, it is still highly likely that by taking the action to start the APU and thus maintain the aircraft in Normal Law, the crew gave themselves the best handling aircraft available to them and thus made the task of achieving the ditching easier (note: easier, not easy). I suspect its the improved handling in Normal Law the NTSB is alluding to here.