Quoting Sidestick:-
Nothing is showing that it was a factor at all, neither that doing otherwise is better. It is obvious that the PNF complained about PF initial imputs almost immediately: he saw them and was able to take over at any point (including by blocking PF further actions) but he refrained from doing so.
Sidestick, I don't know everything about the Airbus displays, but as I understand it the PNF would normally have been able to monitor the control movements of the PF (in the captain's seat) from the Flight Director; but that this depends on the availability of some 'crosshairs'? If you refer to the FDR/CVR transcript (Page 86 onwards) you'll find that the FDs were cutting in and out at intervals throughout the descent; and in the body of the report the BEA says specifically that the crosshairs were cutting in and out even when the FDs were working in other respects? So I for one am none too sure that the PNF had access to the information he needed?
Oddly enough, the BEA has 'covered itself' (in what is only yet another 'interim' report) on this aspect; saying that finding out what information was actually available to the pilots at any particular time will need
'ongoing analyses':-
"Page 481.16.7 - Other on-going analyses - At this stage in the investigation, other analyses are still in progress. Notable amongst these are the attempts to recalculate the airspeed from ADR 2 in order to determine what was displayed on the PF’s PFD and to be able to work out what instructions were displayed by the flight directors’ crossbars. The airplane’s movements in three axes will also be simulated to supplement the longitudinal analysis already performed and to quantify the turbulence experienced by the aircraft."
They also put in some stuff that just about sums up what I for one currently suspect turned an upset into a crash. We all know that such accidents almost never have a single cause: and also that the thing that started off the whole event was the sub-standard pitot tubes (which could and should, IMO, have been replaced months previously). My own view, on present evidence, was that the next most important cause was the inadequate stall warnings; that they tend to communicate 'approach to a stall' and don't 'change their tune' if the aeroplane HAS in fact stalled. And also 'shut up' if the ASI drops below a given speed. Not getting at Airbus specifically on this, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Boeing's stall warnings work the same way.
"Until the end of the flight, the angle of attack values became successively valid and invalid. Each time that at least one value became valid, the stall warning triggered, and each time that the angles of attack were invalid, the warning stopped. Several nose-up inputs caused a decrease in the pitch attitude and in the angle of attack whose values then became valid, so that a strong nose-down input led to the reactivation of the stall warning. It appears that the pilots then reacted by a nose-up input, whose consequences were an increase in the angle of attack, a decrease in measured speeds and, consequently, the cessation of the stall warning. Until the end of the flight, no valid angle of attack value was lower than 35°."
So whenever either pilot applied nosedown stick, the alarms told him that he was, to all intents and purposes, 'making things worse'?
All in all, my conclusion is that it's surely way too early to blame the pilots 100% for this accident?