Some of the descriptions of Airbus's propensity to stall are inaccurate and, in my opinion, incorrect.
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330 testflight in Toulouse stalled due to pilot mishandling leading to an unrecoverable stall. Two experienced pilots. Still some debate if the aircraft would have been able to save, still debates about the electronics/protections handling.
320 Perpignan stalled due to THS behavior. Normal pilots. Still some debate about the recovery possibility or not.
Qantas Perth. Aircraft apparently didn't obey pilot orders, recovery succeeded. Still debating about the real reason of the electronic/protections behavior.
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I recently reviewed flight test accidents in FBW airplanes.
The circumstances in the A330 in Toulouuse was caused by deviating from the desired entry conditions and engaging the autopilot with full thrust then shutting one down. Unfortunately during the brief interval between A/P engagement and engine shutdown the autopilot entered altitude capture mode because the selected altitude had been left too low. Because of the nature of altitude capture, the airplane tried to maintain too steep a climb gradient. Some of the envelope protections were not available in altitude capture.
The A320 in Peripignan had two alpha probes frozen effectively outvoting the third (correct) probe. The test card was to verify alpha protection. Clearly with two indications at low values, alpha protection mode was never going to activate. Nevertheless, the crew continued down to the stall to see if it would finally activate (it didn't). During the stall, airflow differences between the various probes cause a transition to direct law. Unfortunately the test was flown at much too low an altitude for recovery.
This paper was presented at the Flight Test Safety Workshop last month.
The A-330 north of Perth is one of the very few in-service, civil flight by wire accidents (several serious injuries). In my opinion, this was a result of a poor voting scheme for a failed sensor. I say "In my opinion" as the formal report has not been released yet.
This was discussed in a 2009 paper at the International Society of Air Safety Investigators. At that time, only three FBW-caused accidents had been reported with no fatalities. AF-447 was not included because the cause wasn't known (and actually still isn't)
I think we should wait for the report to come out. After all, they've only had the flight and cockpit voice recorder data for a few weeks now.
Goldfish