Agree with you entirely when you mention cognitive dissonance - it's involved somewhere.
From what I've heard
until you've been involved in an aircraft coming "unglued" you have no idea how quickly your comfy world can turn to a crock of S**** and subsequently just how difficult it can be to metaphorically "step back" and analyse the situation objectively.......
We may well eventually discover what information the AF crew had available to them - we'll sadly never know what they perceived.