This aircraft went down 3.5 minutes after the AP disengaged and handed control to the PF, without apparently giving any indication to the PF as to why the AP disengaged.
A supposedly highly sophisticated aircraft automation system just gives up in a flight situation which it cannot handle and gives control to the humans on the flight deck without any indication as to why it did this? WTF!
Is there an SOP for the pilots to deal with this situation?
If so, can the SOP be effectively executed in less than 3.5 minutes (or before the aircraft falls out of the sky) and if not, why not?
These questions really bother me.
There is an SOP - it is quite simple:
PF flies aircraft and states
I have Control.
It can, and should, be 'effectively executed' in <5 seconds. Priority #1 is flying (and Airbus philosophy) and far above discussion, let alone diagnosis, of "why" the AP disconnected. The reasons it can do so are numerous - and largely irrelevant at the time.
A supposedly highly sophisticated aircraft automation system just gives up in a flight situation which it cannot handle and gives control to the humans on the flight deck without any indication as to why it did this? WTF!
A somewhat strange way of thinking
Even in an Airbus, at no point (that I can think of) is the aircraft AP system considered "more capable" by itself,
without monitoring, than the Flt Crew. At no point are the crew absolved from monitoring the AP, and in the event they are not content with what it is doing
disconnecting the AP and flying manually (albeit it may require a change in profile e.g. to a GA from a couple approach / autoland). In the same vein, the AP system is designed to disconnect itself (and warn the crew) as soon as it is "overloaded" / "confused" / being pushed outside it's "comfort zone"...