Yes I agree I am an old fuddy duddy and automation has saved many lives but we have had far too many replies on several threads asking as to what the automatics were doing!
If it is so wonderful then why do so many people get it wrong?
CRM has changed things as has the information highway but this is a major western carrier where the aircraft is built and the systems designed.
It is wrong of the press to put the blame on the pilots and airbus to issue a statement that they could have recovered the situation when they obviously didn't understand what was happening.
My source was a senior AF training captain and I believe the exercise was based upon the original acars data. I have no reason to disbelieve him but he is old school as well and amuses himself with aeroplanes outside of work.
I still believe that if one major long haul carrier decided in the 1960s that they needed two years of basic training for their cadets and a further two years or more before they were fully fledged to operate P2 then perhaps the modern system of under a third of that time is a mistake.
Yes I know it is cost orientated but the demise of a major carrier also carries a cost let alone the needless deaths.
Air France is lucky in that it has a captive customer base - the French wouldn't dream of flying with Johnny Foreigner.
Re power attitude - there was a post stating that PNF was reading from a checklist.
I still go 100% behind my comment that it was a lack of airmanship from the captain to leave the flight deck during the transit of the ITCZ. Having crossed it many times over a period of 7 years as a first officer there was NEVER an occasion when the captain was out of the flight deck. It was, especially in the middle of the night and over the South Atlantic, the most demanding cruise phase of a modern airliner -(poss exception CAT over Andes).
If modern training is sufficient to allow relatively low time first officers to man the flight deck during critical phases of flight that why did they crash and why did my last company who pioneered the direct route fly with two full three man crews?
I still believe the regulatory authorities need to get their A@@@ in gear.