Originally Posted by
jcjeant
When the autopilot disengaged .. it was the pilot duty to maintain a stable flight of the aircraft ...
The aircraft banked to the right .. so ........ hands off ?
Yes, would probably have been the better choice....
It is hardly conceivable that this roll momentum would have been so violent that they would have ended upside down within seconds.
And then a more careful reaction (with less potential for over-reaction) would have been to trim the rudder to compensate for the roll. Especially since a rudder mistrim is a premier candidate for being reponsible for the roll in the first place. A strong fuel imbalance would be really strange. That normally does not happen. At least not without a prior warning of a pump failure or similar. And that you would have found on ACARS. So I would consider that highly unlikely.
Knowing that it is really hard to fight the urgency to do 'something' if something unexpected occurs.
Edit:
@PJ2: Thank you very much for your rational and well balanced and informed posts !!!
If one wants to learn something from this tragedy it is vitally important to keep an open mind. Even if it would mean that the Pilots in this case made Errors that mainly caused this accident.
And if it was that way it must be allowed to say this here otherwise it is not worth the discussion.
As PJ2 and others have said: This is to improve safety and not to put blame.