AoA surely is valuable information, but if nose points 16 deg up and altitude is going down, one would assume figuring out that there's a sh*tload of AoA doesn't really take a rocket scientist?
So maybe they didn't believe what any of their instruments were telling them - still they must have remembered climbing to FL350 - how can 16 deg NU attitude seem like a good idea up there unless you're trying to massively bleed off speed (then you're somewhat unlikely to select TOGA I guess?) or flying a Blackbird?
The more one thinks about it, the less sense it makes.
