Surprised to see that no one has reported on the "leak" on France Info this morning - I was listening to the radio on the way to work. They claimed to have some inside info on what will be announced by the BEA tomorrow. In brief:
- yes the pitots iced up, the flight computers gave up and passed the control to the pilots;
- yes the a/c stalled but (as you'd expect!) the crew then correctly applied the textbook approach to deal with the stall but this did not work;
- yes the captain had briefly left the cockpit but was back in the cockpit for the critical part of the incident.
The article suggested that the incident was as yet inexplicable given current state of the investigation, and concluded that major conclusions would have to be drawn by the industry with regard to contingency procedures, training, system certification, high altitude aerodynamics and more.....
What I found interesting and reassuring was the avoidance of kneejerk reaction blaming just the crew - guess we'll hear whether their leak is correct tomorrow. You can hear the article at the link below - note that they say the more interesting things in the audio stream compared to the written synopsis.
Vol Rio-Paris : le BEA s'apprête à rendre publique une note sur les circonstances de l'accident - international - toute l'actualité internationale - France Info