An "in context" adaption of an excerpt from
Ironies of Automation, by Lisanne Bainbridge, Department of Psychology, University College London.
Manual control skills
Several studies have shown the difference between inexperienced and experienced pilots making a flight path change. The experienced pilot makes the minimum number of actions, and the aircraft's flight path moves smoothly and quickly to the new position, while with an inexperienced pilot it oscillates round the target value. Unfortunately, physical skills deteriorate when they are not used, particularly the refinements of gain and timing. This means that a formerly experienced pilot who has been monitoring an automated aircraft's flight parameters may now be an inexperienced one. If he/she takes over he/she may set the aircraft's trajectory into oscillation. He/she may have to wait for feedback, rather than controlling by open-loop, and it will be difficult for him/her to interpret whether the feedback shows that there is something wrong with the system or more simply that he/she has misjudged his/her control action. He/she will need to make actions to counteract this ineffective control, which will add to his/her work load. When manual takeover is needed there is likely to be something wrong with the automated process, so that unusual actions will be needed to control it, and one can argue that the pilot needs to be more rather than less skilled, and less rather than more (sensory) loaded, than average.
The above is just one of many factors mentioned in the above paper that will have had a bearing on the outcome of AF447. The inability of the PF to get immediate stable control of the aircraft was reflected in his actions throughout the final stages of the flight.
Once stalled, the phugoid nature of the aircraft's motion coupled with a similar rolling pattern appears to have resulted in a sensory blockage as to where the aircraft was in the flight envelope, let alone where it may have been - a direct result of factors mentioned above.
Physiological and psychological aspects of this accident will feature heavily in the final report.
As an example the "circadian rthymn" has previously been raised in the MAK/IAC
Final Report into the crash of an Armavia A320 EK-32009 near Sochi Airport on 3 May 2006. An adaption of a graphic presented in that report is reproduced below and attempts to quantify the increase in error rates expected at the low point of the circadian cycle which is nominally 0300 LST.
The effects of time zone changes in relation to circadian time is difficult to determine, and in the above graphic the circadian time is shown as Local Solar Time. The social aspects of time zones that are quite removed from normal circadian time, e.g. Paris Local Solar Time and Central European Summer Time may have a modifying effect. Hence the showing of the Paris LST.
P.S. Thanks for the link
safetypee.