airtren, I am puzzled at one of your suggestions.
I am also intrigued by your trying to follow a reasoning process based on what we know, the idea that the PF was keen to change altitude.
Hadn't considered that line of thought previously.
At the moment the A/P and A/THR disconnected, at 2:10:05, the A/C needed a correction command, and I think it is also possible that the PF thought, that it is worth trying to go at a higher flight level - we don't know if the air temperature may have decreased?
But wouldn't he have
added power with his pitch up input if it was his intention to climb two or three thousand feet?
The BEA text indicates that the A/C climbed (from FL 350 and speed 275 kt) while rolling left and right between 12 and 10 degrees to FL 375, at which time the speed on the Left indicator increased (came back) to 215 kt, Mach 0.68, and the AoA was of 4 degrees (with stall warning stopped).
Based on the vertical speed of 7000ft/min mentioned by the BEA's text, the A/C climbed the 2500 ft to FL 375 in about 20 seconds, which left about another 20 seconds of flying approximately at this FL375 and A0A of 4 degrees, before the stall warning was triggered again at 2:10:51.
Note the left speed indicator seems to have been back OK right before the stall warning was triggered again at 2:10:51.
Did the PF, at this moment of stall warning again, decide to go a bit further up, as gaining altitude seemed to him to help with the turbulence, but also be a help with the coming back of the speed indicator? We don't know what he saw through the windshield - ice? - that may have been another contributor to the decision.
But wouldn't he have added power to climb in the first place? Cruise climbs typically are a change in both power and attitude. Is there evidence that he assumed A/T would follow his stick input (nose up) and that he noticed (late?) that the A/T had not followed his nose up for a climb command? I cannot recall that having been covered in the BEA report. Is that another reason that the pilots noted "Alternate Law?" If so, why not comment on what the auto throttle was, or wasn't, doing?
OK, then answer me this: why was TOGA applied when it was applied? See the timeline a few pages back?
Also, if I get a stall warning, is my first thought "I need to climb a bit to avoid ice?"
Recently, on a cross continental flight, as passenger, during the heavy storm season, at about ½ way into the flight, at cruise altitude, and clouds way bellow, out of nowhere, the A/C entered a high altitude cloud, and hit heavy turbulence. After a couple of seconds in the cloud and turbulence, the plane climbed, and I could tell, as soon as it came out of the cloud, after not too long, that it was at least several hundred feet higher.
You are able, in pax mode, to measure/sense at cruise altitude a change in a few hundred feet of altitude?