From Fallows Atlantic Mag
Reading the BEA report, there's no indication that the crew lost all instruments, simply all instruments dependent on the pitot-static system. Attitude, derived from a combination of rate and attitude gyros should still have been reliable. The key difficulty faced by the crew was that the standard practice of using pitch + power to maintain safe flight without air data didn't seem to be working and the problem is that it won't if the aircraft is already stalled. With the airbus' FBW [fly by wire] system and passive stick, the crew would have none of the force or buffet cues through the side-stick that might have told them this.
At the same time, if the attitude of the aircraft is nominal [normal], power is nominal, but vertical speed is indicating -10,000ft per minute, the most likely cause is that the airplane is stalled. Yes, the VS indications could have been bad also, but it's less likely to be wrong than airspeed (requires only static pressure) and the crew had already tried the standard response.<<