Originally Posted by
Old Carthusian
I do believe the PF understood he was in ALT2 - after all he calls "I have the controls" (which I interpret as an acknowledgment of the switch) but if he didn't that was also an indication of poor flight deck management and serious training deficiencies.
Personally I do
not believe the PF's call of "I have the controls" (in French) was acknowledgement that he was in ALT2 - it was only acknowledgement that the AP had disconnected, and hence the PF has manual control. The CVR transcript shows the PF giving that call at 2:10.06 which is within 1s of the AP disconnect, so I do not believe that after this surprise event, he knew which mode he was in before he said that.
Approx 16s later the PNF announces "Alternate Law protections" but I've never seen any indications of acknowledgement from the PF, nor whether he
really understood what that means about the available protections - which seems to fit with your second point above. However other things like cognitive overload were also well-argued in the past.