Originally posted by gums ...
Then there's AoA sensors that are ignored because the speed is below 60 knots. So how is the stall warning considered valid when the AoA was being ignored?
Surely these guys "got off the wheel" before it had a chance to turn full circle.
The Stall Warning is just that, and if it was to serve its designed for purpose, the PF/PNF would be expected to acknowledge it and take appropriate action. They didn't, and the wheel turned and got them in the a*se. So in that respect you can't blame the SW.
The PF not understanding that the pitch operates the same way in Normal Law and Alternate Law, but one "
is protected" and the other is "
not protected" is also a mystery. The PNF more worried about getting the CPT back to the FD than calling the ECAM and getting the QRH out is an even stranger mystery. This accident didn't happen in a vacuum - it happened to a flight that was under the control of two "apparently" competent pilots.
Granted there are issues that have validly been raised in respect of the SS visibility, but they are secondary to the human factor failures that we are currently aware of.
Pitch Characteristics - Normal and Alternate Laws
When acting on the stick the pilot commands a constant G load maneuver and the aircraft response is G load / Pitch rate. The pilot order is therefore consistent with the aircraft response "naturally" expected by the pilot, Pitch rate at low speed / Flight Path rate or G at high speed
The aircraft did as it was told - abeit the "wrong" thing, but it can't be "strung up" for that, with one proviso - there needs to be a means of preventing THS auto trim runaway once CAS/AoA/FPA have gone AWOL.
Lets face it, the pilots had control and the aircraft knew no better than to obey them.