Just read it was pilot error.
I am curious how long apologizing and making excuses for the pilots will continue here and elsewhere in the lack of realization and denial that keeping the rubber side down on an aircraft isn't that hard.
'Keeping the rubber side down isn't that hard?
Really? You have experience of flying an A330 close to its ceiling in turbulence at night in alternate law with instruments that are failing? If so you must be one of the few A330 pilots in the _world_ with that experience.
There is a lot of difference between being given a situation that you have been trained for and making errors, and being given a situation that you have never trained for and being expected to ace it from no experience.
It would appear that 'bus drivers are all conditioned that its just going to motor on and you can forget all that 'fly the aircraft stuff' that you might have been taught. All that is needed is a knowledge of the laws and a list of mental exercises to recite at the periodic check and if in doubt pitch and power.
Well in this case that was not true and people died.
This is not so much 'pilot error' as pilots being put in a situation that they had no chance of recovering as they'd never been trained to do so. What reactions they did have were in line with the by rote training they had received.
Indeed it may be that even an ace manual pilot may have had difficulty, given that it was night time in turbulent weather conditions, the lack of reliable instruments and squirrely behavior of an aircraft close to its ceiling with some protections but not others.
But I am sure you would have had no problem with your high skill and infallibility you would have needed no training and just have another story over pastis the next day.
