Maybe this message is not exactly « technical » enough for the Tech log, but I think that training and experience, after all, are the key to explaining the difficulties met by the crew. So I hope you will show patience…
When I first started thinking, feeling wise, with all the time I needed and all the documents I could find, I thought…they were surprised, they were disoriented, the crew did not work as a crew, maybe they could have done better. But time passed, I learned surprising things on the plane, on its systems, on its protections, although I flew for years on the A320 family (from 318 to 321) and I was not especially lazy or complacent.
And in very recent times, I have talked to friends, captains who fly on the 330 or 340, and who are very serious and trustworthy. They told me that they learnt from that accident a lot of things they certainly did not know at the time. Things their training had not prepared them for. Facts that are well known to test pilots or military fighter pilots, but which you have no way to learn in a career where you start at nearly zero experience on the A320 and end on the A380.
For example, when in an unusual position, a stall, a spin, you move the controls to a position that you think useful…or that the airplane manufacturer recommends,and you wait. You wait for long seconds, until the new position of the flight controls gives a result. Then, eventually, you wait some more…Many airline pilots have never practised that, and have no knowledge of it. My friends certainly did not.And I will not hold it against them, I had the good luck to be a military pilot first, flying some strange airborne objects of all kinds, but that does not make me better (in fact I was a very average IFR pilot)…only that different experience was useful at times.
The stall warning ? None of my friends knew that it stops at low speed, by a mysterious agreement with the DGAC, when the certification rules say that it should only stop when the angle of attack becomes normal again.
The trim protection in low speed mode, in alternate law…forget it, nobody knew anything about it (the fact that it is speed and not angle of attack that inhibits the trim from running too far aft…alas there were no speeds available).
The decision to apply TOGA thrust (made on the second stall alarm) was perfecly applying the first step of the Stall procedure at the time. It happens that now, that is forbidden at altitude and the procedure has completely changed.
Knowledge of the aerodynamics of the stall on the A330…none at the time, and, even now, very cloudy (experts are now considering a pitch-up into the deep stall never encountered in flight testing).
The A330 was modified after the crash (those at air France anyway) to have a « dual Input « alarm when both pilots act on the sticks at the same time. It did not have that alarm on the night of the accident.
I think that we should keep in mind the very scant knowledge and training of the pilots at the time in the aerodynamics, stall recovery techniques, stall recognition…It was NEVER thought at the time that those planes could fly beyond the « approach to stall ». It was never thought either that the plane could « fly » with 40 degrees AOA and only 8 or 10 degrees of nose up.
So, of course the crew might have done better, but they certainly were not seriously prepared for what happened. May they rest in peace.