Hi BOAC,
Originally Posted by BOAC
Leaving aside what happened after the climb, what about the climb?
1) There is nothing in the BEA report to suggest that the aircraft caused it itself. The only 'query' here is the track record of system reaction to 'events', like the QF pitch anomaly and the 2001 North Atlantic altitude excursion with TC-JDN. It is worth noting that in this the crew did not trigger a climb.
There is another way to change pitch attitude than pulling up on the sidestick as simply applying thrust could do the job if the ammount is large enough.
While I agree that QF event remains a mystery, TC-JDN case is showing that, right after autothrust disconnection, manual thrust was applied and increased from N1 below 70% to 100%. Sidestick (ND?!) imputs were not applied until the top of the climb 30 seconds later, hence nothing contraried TC-JDN to change its level flight. Someone also posted a revised chart of DFDR control imputs but, as far as I remember, it did not include any thrust track.
Originally Posted by BOAC
(There is some confusion (for me) in the AAIB report where the FDR traces suggest the TCAS RA occurred BEFORE the a/c left its cruise level). Had this crew been in the ITCZ at night and not in clear air in daylight it is worth contemplating what might have occurred.
There is some more confusion (for me) in the AAIB report and in the cockpit. Had this crew been in the ITCZ (or anywhere else at night) it would be certainly dangerous, but they still were in NORMAL LAW and the flight envelope, contrary to AF447, was still fully protected as airspeed was valid all the time.
Originally Posted by BOAC
2) There is nothing in the BEA report to suggest that the pilots caused the climb either.
Well, I should have read another "report" as in mine, a nose up order was (almost immdediately) given by the pilot... the later nose down orders that were applied only reduced the climb rate from 7,000 ft to 700 ft/mn (which is not enough to start a descent). So here, we effectively need to see the tracks in order to understand what the PF really wanted to do. It is not like this initial climb looked like uncommanded, but the report doesn't tell much about how it was controled and what could have prevented this high climb rate control by the PF.