Originally Posted by
CONF iture
What bothers me is that something was wrong in that aircraft before anything happened. The crew had to deal with something bizarre ... and the BEA has not said a single word about it.
Could just as easily be a glitch in the FDR data though - which can have issues with sampling sometimes and after all had spent the best part of three years on the bottom of the ocean. The regularity of the missing data samples suggests a read/write failure rather than the value actually being read.
Even so, I'm sure I remember seeing Airbus pilots post that they don't tend to use V/S select all that often, and in cruise there'd be no reason to use it. If it's not referred to in the final report, write to the BEA and ask for it - it can't hurt.