Diagnostic
I am a private person and I value my privacy very much. That is why you will not see any information about my flying experience on my private page. It is also why I have not checked up on yours or anyone else's. I take everyone by what they write and that means the occasional mistake that they may post. But just this once I will make an exception - I received my instrument rating back in 1985.
I joined this board to learn about this particular incident but what I am learning disturbs me greatly. This doesn't seem to be about aircraft but about cultures of neglect and arrogance that develop in the professional piloting world and that scares me. We have Pan Am back in the 1970s, Korean Airlines in the 1980s, Air France now. The implications are very disturbing - almost as if there is a disease that can infect any airline. Arguments about automation and greater computing taking away flying skills may have some bearing but not really. Pan Am's culture happened in the yoke/mechanical linkage era. So did Korean's. There are thousands of Aibuses flying around the world - probably at least 50 of them are in the air as I write. All of them using sidesticks. There are thousands of Boeings - they use yokes don't they? Both input methods are equally valid and both have their adherents. However, the yoke would not have saved the aircraft in this incident because the issue is cultural not mechanical.