Originally Posted by
bearfoil
As the speeds declined, the ship would accommodate the "loss" of speed by increasing power, since energy needs to be added and altitude needs to remain the same, but as the a/c climbed anyway, (the energy was actually just right, the computer found it to be low because of ICE), the Nose would be lowered. This might continue until the a/c was zipping along at its assigned cruise level carrying too much power and actual velocity. Depending again on the rate of uptake, this false trimming would last until the a/c autopilot checked out, unable to control the Nose "hunting for a satisfactory Pitch". (AutoPhugoid?)
Maybe not impossible, but I think the theory falls at the same test as the idea that updrafts caused or accelerated the climb - namely that the kinetic-potential energy then doesn't add up. Those (not me) that did the maths and posted however many pages back, showed clearly that the BEA figures match the a/c trading KE for PE. Your theory has the a/c carrying additional KE over and above what BEA says (real AS > IAS) before the climb - which would give a higher apogee, I believe.
Bottom line. Why Autotrim in dire circumstances. Obviously available, even mandatory, who needs it?
Yet in several other crashes and incidents, loss of autotrim has lead to LOC (and deaths) as pilots failed to manage the trim along with everything else they were handed at short notice.
Autotrim on or off - no right answer. Whichever you choose as a designer, sooner or later someone is going to die in part because it wasn't the other way round.
At the risk of parsing too closely, In the audio where the pilots are noticing "No indications", is it surprise one senses? Or Betrayal?
Given we've only got a transcript and that through translation - who knows.
I also keep coming back to that line though, and wondering what
other indications they lost. Did they lose attitude, distrust it, or just not see it ?