JD-EE;
PJ2 made a comment I hoped to elicit, "DO NOTHING was the correct response and that is the action which would have "prevented" the loss of control."
I made that comment shortly after the airspeed-ACARS discussion began in July, 2009 and have done so several times since to get that aspect of the discussion going. "Do nothing" not only makes complete sense to a pilot because the airplane was stable and doesn't need an airspeed indicator to fly, but doing something takes one into unknown territory because one is no longer at the original pitch and power setting and there are no breadcrumbs back and no airspeed. I later posited that the pull-up was in response to one of the memorized items in the UAS drill. Maybe, maybe not, but the airplane didn't pitch up all by itself.
So please let me ask, "if the controls really are sensitive enough that the "natural" bend of the wrist to correct a roll would also induce a climb?"
They can be, if one is ham-fisted but that applies to every transport I've flown. Yes, a climb can be induced accidentally, perhaps under stress or turbulence (discussed previously) but I know of no pilot, especially of this experience, who, after having unintentionally applying such movement, would permit the result to develop into what it did without stopping it. An immediate, tiny, gentle correction would be all that was needed to return the airplane to the cruise altitude, while correcting the roll. Hardly a change in 'g' would be needed.
The airplane hand-flies beautifully at cruise altitudes. As always with any transport aircraft, you have to be gentle with it, making tiny control inputs. It
will respond aggressively if you make it by using a handful of stick movement. I would not expect that of someone with as much time on the airplane as the F/O had.
So I reask, "What made the PF decide he needed to climb? Might it be to avoid something and he forgot throttle was frozen? Might it be he thought there was an over speed condition and he needed to slow down immediately?"
Without the data we cannot say.
Your UAS list comment is one we should enter formally into the record and discuss. It does appear to at least partially answer the above. 2000', however, seems to cost a tremendous amount of speed. I'd think 500' or 1000' would be about the limit of what you'd want to lose in a pull up action.
Yes...so the question is, why did a pitch-up maneuver make sense? Did it have to? We cannot say without the data.
Since the BEA's note, we've all been at it, working overtime to fill in the frustrating holes and blanks, trying to make sense of something that does not lend itself easily to such a task and is difficult to come to terms with. This is a rational enterprise in a thoroughly rational industry so that is how we work it to answer the questions we are all so familiar with and talk about. The notion is discussable as one idea among many. The data's the thing and cranes, not skyhooks must do the heavy lifting where there is a disconnect in this or that theory. But I have yet to see an explanation involving the AFS which fits within the known facts about the aircraft and what we know happened, without the use of skyhooks.