Originally Posted by
Garrison
It is unlikely that a recovery could have been made without manually trimming the THS. At high alpha the elevator is not very powerful compared with the stabilizer. That this was not done suggests that the crew were not aware of the -13 degree THS setting. Doesn't it seem unlikely that if they were aware of it, and had identified the stall, they would have been deterred from using it by their simulator training? They were about to die. Or did I overlook something in the report?
Even if it gets tiring:
Could you point me to
any indication the Crew identified that they were in a stall and that it was the THS trim that defeated their vigorous Nose Down command on the elevator ???
Furthermore:
Could you point me to a source that the THS wouldn't have returned to a more neutral / Nose down setting after continuous Nose Down would have dropped the Nose below 30° AoA ?
Until 10kFt I do not see any indication that the Flight condtion was properly identified by the Crew and any corresponding Text Book Recovery attemptes were made / sustained. That makes philosophying technical limitations to recovery obsolete, IMHO.
Below 10kFt recovering from a 40° AoA would have been impossible anyway.
Regarding the usefulness of an AoA indication:
It is definitely not clear if that would have made a change. It would have bbeen an additional opportunity though. But only if it is covered in the training as well. Otherwise it will be meaningless.
Indication of the Angle of the THS: I doubt it would have helped. I cannot see a Crew already overwhelmed by Information/warnings/alerts/chimes starting to look for even more data and rather 'irrelevant' ones from their perspective for that matter.