No, we do not get
all the details, and unfortunately whoever did the translation into English is not a professional pilot. "Assiette" in French means Pitch, not AOA (which is "incidence" in French).
So, initially the PF raised the nose to 10 dg+ (with less than 7 dg AOA which would have caused an immediate accelerated stall) and at 38000`the nose lowered to around +5 dg. The momentum + the TOGA thrust (which at this altitude is only a modest MCL) then took the aircraft into a deep stall.
At this time the only survivable strategy would have been to pitch the aircraft down to below the horizon.
For the record: even with aft trimmed stab at VS, the A330 does have sufficient nose down authority for this. Only in a fully developed deep stall at very low EAS may this not be available; goes for almost
any aircraft type.
As a TRI/TRE I do these hi-altitude stall recovery exercises on a regular basis on A330 and believe me; in a confusing scenario like the actual one, only the most proficient pilots prevail, so please stop the "pilot-factor" blame game.
If the majority of pilots cannot cope with a given situation it is either "natural causes" (like all-engine failure + loss of instruments in ash scenario) or "system failure" (if an operator or manufacturer does not ensure adequate training for a particular situation).
The 747 "sales video" is nice, but misleading. It is true that you can power your way out in level flight (and the A330 actually does this better than the 74)
provided you have not stalled. In that case you must regain airflow by lowering the nose and thus decrease the AOA and regain speed.
When building an aircraft, the various design offices try to envision all kinds of contingencies and design a safe aircraft accordingly, but there are limits to human imagination (like when a 74 lost part of the rudder in Japan, or when the same happened to an A330 in the US ).
The events so far seem to be logical but unfortunate. We can only hope that the operators will use this wake up call to go beyond the "minimum required training" policy that is so common today in our cost saving environment. Few pilots come to the airlines with 10 years of fighter experience and the rest have never seen a 10 dg nose down recovery at FL 380.
And for the stupid West Coast vs. TLS comparison: I have stalled wide bodies from both sides: Marginally prefer TLS for its better wing design (and the good red wine you get after the flight testing
.