From LazerDog, #1729:
Have not seen much mention if any of whether altimeter data was available. It appears to me from looking at the releases that it should have been there, and would have been unreeling downward and would have been part of the instrument cross-check. Anyone knowledgeable on the -330 want to comment on this? This is a pretty important piece of information, but no comments on this post???
From DozyWannabe, #1730
Nothing to suggest altitude data wouldn't be there, in fact there's nothing to suggest any instrument malfunction other than airspeed.
There seems to be some suggestion of a possible problem with altitude data from ACARS Message 8 (WRN/WN0906010210 344300506NAV TCAS FAULT). According to BEA Interim report No.2, section 1.16.2.4.1, analysis of message 8 , the most likely reason for the generation of this message seems to be, “...
is a monitoring process internal to the TCAS which applies to the standard altitude parameter. The latter is received from the active transponder (it can thus be the altitude elaborated from ADR 1 or 2) and is submitted to a “credibility” test. In actual fact the TCAS elaborates an altitude prediction that it compares permanently with the altitude received.”According to section 1.6.11.6 a compensation factor is applied to standard altitude dependant on Mach but in the example given, for a difference between Mach of 0.8 and 0.3, the compensation to standard altitude is only 0.7%, whereas an 'incredible' gap between a measured and a predicted altitude would IMO be of the order of 2 to 5%, say around 1000' or more.
Another possible reason for the PF NU input?