Originally Posted by
TTex600
You seem to be focused on proving that the pilots performed poorly and proving that the airplane is innocent...
Not at all, unless you're choosing to read it that way. You can understand a certain defensiveness on the part of some Airbus pilots however, given the amount of unadulterated horlicks that has been thrown at the type over the years. Also bearing in mind that some of those you are talking to have English as a second language, saying things like "A true aviator flying a normal aircraft uses touch and sight" could be read as accusing them of not being "true" aviators, whatever that means.
while I'm trying to understand WHY they failed at their task.
As are we all, but the fact is that there are many on the myriad threads on the subject who will not be satisfied until the aircraft is found 100% to blame for various reasons related to their personal psychology.
isn't it ironic that the I, the American, find myself defending the French pilots against their European brothers.
Nationality does not come into it - more so than ever these days. The facts on the ground thus far indicate that the PF made inputs that make no sense coming from a trained aviator - finding out why this was is absolutely paramount, but throwing pre-conceived notions like the Airbus being overly complex to a pilot, rogue computers going haywire and the like around do not assist understanding, they simply turn things into a slanging match which benefits nobody.
To: everyone else, Please remember that we do NOT know what the PF saw in his PFD. All of the indignation you read regarding the pilot flyings failure to properly react is coming from people with 20/20 hindsight. People who have had two years to study, in minute detail, every parameter of the initial onset and subsequent stall. Had the pilot had the same verifiable , reliable data we have the outcome would likely have been quite different.
You're new to the subject and threads, but I'd like to point out that one of the very first things I said on the subject was to the effect of the situation those pilots faced was the dictionary definition of every pilot's worst nightmare - unreliable instruments in night IMC in turbulent conditions, and that no matter what happened on that flight deck, this must be taken into account. There's no evidence to suggest that the PF's PFD was displaying anything divergent from his colleague's in the LHS - and indeed, if the PFD was not making sense (over and above the unreliable airspeed and V/S unreadability) then there is no apparent indication of that, nor an attempt to cross check with the PNF and hand control over if the latter's was making more sense.
This isn't about two sides "defending" their turf, this is about trying to get to the bottom of the accident and doing our best to not fall into the old traps which infect every Airbus incident thread there has ever been on this site.