"If you read carefuly BEA's reports you will notice that most (if not ALL) affected crews wisely decided NOT to apply the 5° up/TOGA drill"
Nevertheless, that -
'apply TOGA power and seek to maintain altitude' - was the 'book procedure' (for both Airbus and Boeing) at the time AF447 went in? It was changed to
'get the nose down and apply power sparingly as the attitude improves' - a few months after AF447; can't myself believe that that was just a conicidence, and had no connection with the accident (plus the 2008 Perpignan one)?
PNF knew what PF was doing, there was no mystery. It is a fairytale. He was constantly scolding the PF to descend. And probably not from looking at the ss.
Except, though, that he could only get that information from the instruments? First of all there'd have been a 'timelag' - and secondly, given the abnormal conditions etc., he couldn't have been 100% certain that it was the result of the PF's inputs? I remain of the opinion that if he'd known about the stick inputs 'at first-hand' he'd have had a better (and earlier) chance to intervene decisively?
In any case, we haven't had much discussion of the fact that about halfway down the pilot (or 'pilots') DID make some nose-down inputs; and both the attitude and the airspeed improved. Because of the increased IAS, though, these inputs resulted in the 'dormant' stall warning waking up and sounding again. This is the point that the pilots' union is stressing - it very probably just served to make the pilots (all three of them by that time) even more confused......?
Finally there's the question of the THS staying at 'full up.' BEA barely mentions this fact in the AF447 report, but they covered it very well in their report on the (similar) Perpignan crash the previous year. That report very clearly explains why that happened:-
"Footnote:- The elevators must go beyond the neutral position before the auto trim function adjusts the position of the stabilizer.
"When the stall warning sounded, the Captain reacted by placing the thrust levers in the TO/GA detent and by pitching the aeroplane down, in accordance with procedures.
"The nose-down input was not however sufficient for the automatic compensation system to vary the position of the horizontal stabilizer, which had been progressively deflected to the pitch-up stop by this system during the deceleration."
As I understand it (given that the THS was at 13 degrees up) a very decisive nosedown input would have been required to get the THS moving down again; and even if one had been applied, let's not forget that the THS took a full minute to go from 3 degrees to 13 degrees; so, presumably, it would have taken another full minute to go down to a reasonable angle again?
Sadly, I'm not sure that the flight crew had as much as a minute of life left to them by that stage?
Furthermore, that report goes on to say:-
"Under the combined effect of the thrust increase, the increasing speed and the horizontal stabilizer still at the pitch-up stop, the aeroplane was subject to pitch-up moment that the Captain could not manage to counter, even with the sidestick at the nose-down stop."
Full Perpignan report can be read here:-
http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2008/d-la...a081127.en.pdf
So it appears that the BEA considered that the 2008 Perpignan captain had no practical chance of regaining control, even with full nosedown inputs? Yet, in the AF447 report, the BEA says that the AF447 2009 situation (in exactly the same circumstances, in a deep stall with the THS full up) was 'recoverable'?
I can't overly blame Airbus for trying to offload as much liabilty as they can; that's the way business works, especially with hundreds of millions in compensation at stake. But I hope very much that they will act quickly and decisively 'behind the scenes'; as I believe that they already have by changing the stall recovery procedure.
In particular, I hope that they:-
1. Link the sidesticks at least to the point that both pilots are aware of inputs on either side;
2. Review the operation of the stall warning; ideally, if technically possible, add a second warning reacting to an actual stall rather than an imminent one;
3. Make sure that, in future, if the rest of the aeroplane 'gives up' and hands the pilots manual control, the THS does the same.
My guess is that none of those changes would cost a great deal; they'd mainly be 'software' rather than 'hardware.' Additionally, they could be introduced quite quickly, on existing aeroplanes as well as new ones. Furthermore, I don't see any way in which those changes would make the aeroplanes any more difficult to fly; and they sure MIGHT help to avoid further such accidents in the future?