Well, this is the one billion dollar question.
If you ask me, I don't know, if you ask me, *should* he have known, I strongly affirm. These guys happened to experience the worst case of instrument failure, and what do you do when you have that? Looking out of the window? Smoking a cigarette? Chatting with your cabin attendant? Sorry for being so bitterly sarcastic but this is not a question of Airbus or fbw or any other question, this is gross neglect of primary pilots duty. You don't leave your eyes from the instruments until your aircraft is stable and checklist work is initiated. And this means all four eyes. But they never left the initial confusion state until impact.