PJ2,
Thanks for your well considered response... I agree with Poit.
I think there may be more than a few readers here who took me to be 'blaming' the crew for this.... Truth is that I've simply accepted the BEA's statement that there was not a problem with the aircraft (beyond the iced pitot probes), and I've started trying to imagine what causes may exist for the crew to misread their situation and provide incorrect responses. When I say the answer that best fits what we know so far is that the PF "screwed the pooch", I'm using an age old vernacular that I thought all who fly would understand... It doesn't necessarily imply that Ace McCool himself wouldn't have made the same incorrect assessment of the situation.
My original question was simply trying to find good reasons for the errors made. ...and I still think the answer may have had everything to do with what they saw and what they felt. ...and undoubtedly the sequence of same.
As an AME I'm well aware of the multiple contributing factors involved in any accident, and I know very well that blame can never be assigned to a single source. There are always other contributions along a chain of happenings. However, there is always the first line of an answer, such as: "Aircraft XXX fell out of the sky because the wing fell off." ...or, "The aircraft failed to stop on the runway because the wheels fell off." etc... Each and every case would have much more to the tale of course, with many important details, but the first line is not something that can be avoided.
In this case I've taken the BEA's releases at face value and have read the first line as saying, 'The pitot tubes iced, giving erroneous AS readings and the pilots failed to respond appropriately.' ....and now we need to find out why, yes?
In that, I can well imagine, given the situation they found themselves in, that many pilots might have made the same errors. I think in the seconds they had to deal with their multitude of puzzles and mixed messages, even Ace may have wound up in the drink.