Machinbird:
Biggest fault with the Spiegel article is that the aircraft was "doomed" when the trim ran up to 13 degrees. If the crew had run it back down to near normal, this long thread would probably not exist and there would likely not exist a victim's family group.
Agree entirely. If it's true about the Captain recognizing that the airplane was stalled, then everything comes down to that trim wheel -- unless, of course, the A330 turns out to have an unrecoverable deep stall mode, which I very much doubt. But if he said that as reported by
Spiegel, why did the PF not react with an AND command? Oh, maybe that's where the AND command does occur -- but is aborted because of the stall warning. What a mess!