maynardGkeynes, so what about the pitch displayed on the attitude indicators?
@ fireflybob
You are correct: attitude, derived from a combination of rate and attitude gyros should still have been reliable. 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. The problem the crew faced is that using the standard practice of pitch + power to maintain safe flight does not work if the aircraft is ALREADY stalled, which was the case here. With the airbus' FBW [fly by wire] system and passive stick, the crew had none of the force or buffet cues through the side-stick that would have told them that were in a stall, which would also have explained why the pitch + power response, which seemed not to be working for them, was to no avail. I believe that under the circumstances, the stall was effectively unrecoverable.