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Old 31st May 2011, 22:28
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matthewsjl
 
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That suggests that things broke down with that stall warning at 37500 feet. The PF appears to have made an inappropriate action, full throttle and pull up - the apparently prescribed action to take before a stall. But it never seemed to help but the PF kept the stick back fatally long even as the thrust was, at some time, reduced to idle. It was at idle at 2 h 12 min 02, and TOGA at 2 h 10 min 51. That's all I can extract from the report.
Well, immediately before that stall warning, we know that the aircraft was climbing. The report states the rate of climb had been reduced and the VS was recorded as +700ft/min. The altitude was reported as FL375.

The report is clear that the descent started 3m30 before the end of the recoring - so that would be 2h10m58s. So, my guess is that there was about 7s between the warning and the actual stall.

Now, they reached a max altitude of FL380 - so there was some climb energy left before the actual stall and we know the two immediate actions at the stall warning by the PF were TOGA and nose up sidestick.The engines would have taken time to spool up. I reckon that they were too close to the stall and the nose-up at the warning pushed them into an actual stall.
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