DozyWannabe
@jcjeant - Nothing to do with any "protections" as such, travel limiters on hydraulic surfaces have been around for donkey's years (you don't want the same input:deflection ratio at cruise as you do at takeoff or on approach!). It looks to me like the limiters were functioning as they should have been - restricting surface travel while apparently in stable cruise phase and giving maximum authority when things started to go pear-shaped.
i had asked that question at least two times before, and your answer motivates me to try it a third time:
If the SS input to the flightcontrols, in this case to the elevators (and the THS???) is modulated according to speed, what speed source is used and is that a gradual change or a change of lets say 2 or three different datum values?
I think this question is very important, as we see a drastic drop of IAS after AP dropout while PF was (mis)handling the SS. If this new "false speed" changed the modulation of the SS input to the extreme low speed regime (wich at that time was not cosistant with the real speed), then the SS inputs of the PF would suddenly cause much greater flightcontrol deflections than moments before. It would explain part of the initial SS control problems and if THS travel is speed dependent as well we should look into THS travel to NU in relation to later (when speeds where valid again)THS travel ND also.