Originally Posted by DozyWannabee
Could you elaborate a little? I know you're talking about people you're actually meeting on the line here, but as far as this thread is concerned I don't think anyone has suggested that "Cause is pilot error, and we're done". Pilot error itself has myriad contributing factors including rest time, training, airline culture and human psychology.
As far as the airframe is concerned, it appears that recovery is relatively straightforward at the apex of the zoom climb, and becomes progressively more difficult as the aircraft sinks further into the stall. From the point they pass about 30,000ft on the way down it's impossible to know whether any airframe could have been recovered other than by using techniques which your average line pilot would not know, and in any case, from the moment they actually stalled they were in test pilot territory to start with.
You've already acknowledged the source of my statement. I was talking about the way some other pilots regard the cause of this accident. The lack of airline pilot participation in this very forum is a good indicator of the overall lack of interest I see in my fellow pilots. Most airline pilots I speak to about AF447 have only a passing familiarity with the details, they don't have the interest to go deeper than "the pilot stalled it and didn't know how to recover". I'm not a psychologist, so any conclusion I draw from their attitude is pure speculation, but I think that most Airbus drivers I talk to don't want to accept that the airplane is partly at fault because that would mean that it could happen to them. Very few human beings want to believe that some event could overwhelm them, I believe it is called "denial".