Interacting with computers
First, let me apologize for my frustrated outburst of the other day - I was perhaps one beer beyond inhibition and the idea of those poor people on the ocean floor got the best of me.
Second - no one is mentioning the very most important factor here - no matter how good and competent you are, when dealing with computers that have panicked, the universal reaction is to stare at the screen in confusion. This applies to everyone - even the Apollo 11 astronauts, on the way to the lunar surface, were flummoxed by computer alarms, and if not for the intervention of the boys in the "back room", would have aborted their landing. The success of the mission was due in large part to Steve Bales, who knew the guidance computer like his hand and could make an instinctive and correct assessment of the problems Armstrong and Aldrin were facing.
It appears to me, from following these discussions, that Airbus pilots have got themselves in a situation where they are so tied to the computer, that they lose the critical ability to fly the airplane from experience and airmanship rather than from interpretation of error reports.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with computers assisting in the flight of an airplane. But they should be servants, not directors - the airplane should react as an airplane, and at any moment it should be possible to pull the plug on the flight director and fly the airplane according to aerodynamics and piloting experience, rather than by understanding various "laws" and "modes" of a particular computer system. I have very little doubt that the culprit in this terrible accident is a computer system that only understands what it is told, and falling into the sea while stalled is not part of its universe.