Originally Posted by
thermostat
...And one other thing. It wasn't ice crystals that caused the pitot blockage, it was supercooled water which froze on contact with the pitots. That same SC water would have made the AOA vane inoperative also. It would be helpful if we could stick to the real facts in all discussions.
Since AF447 HAD AoA vanes, and they actually continued to provide good data except when invalidated by the system due to low airspeed, how do you conclude that the AoA vanes would have been inoperative? They were in the same atmospheric conditions as the pitots. The pitots couldn't cope, the vanes did.