Quote:
Originally Posted by
BOAC 
Unless something has fallen off or the a/c is wildly out of trim for some reason, sit on your hands, think about it, leave everything where it was for a few moments and THEN do something - as I say, thisi is fine as long as Hal is not doing something else..
Henra
Can we agree that if the Pilots would have followed this advise it is very highly likely that we would know nothing about an air France Flight 447 today ?!
Henra,
If it had been Alt 1 law yes. Unfortunately this was in Alt 2 law. Nothing is leveling the wings in Alt 2 law but the pilot. There are indications that there was either a wing heavy condition or turbulence causing roll inputs to be required to avoid an extreme roll attitude.
From the BEA note
From 2 h 10 min 05
, the autopilot then auto-thrust disengaged and the PF said "I have the
controls". The airplane began to roll to the right and the PF made a left nose-up input. The stall warning sounded twice in a row.
At 2 h 10 min 16, the PNF said "so, we’ve lost the speeds" then "alternate law […]"......... The airplane’s pitch attitude increased progressively beyond 10 degrees and the plane started to climb. The PF made nose-down control inputs and alternately left and right roll inputs. The vertical speed, which had reached 7,000 ft/min, dropped to 700 ft/min and the roll varied between 12 degrees right and 10 degrees left.
The aircraft was not yet stalled while the above was happening.
If we knew the reason for the nose up pitch inputs, we would be well on the way to understanding the accident. IMHO, inadvertent pitch input while controlling the roll axis seems to be the most likely cause.
Alt 2 is a funny law. You have to stay off the pitch axis, but fly the roll axis. That does not seem trivial to me.