Originally Posted by MM43
The real question should be why the PF believed he could manoeuvre the A/C at FL350+ the same way he had been trained to do at below FL100. Ultimately what was done right/wrong and by whom boils down to bad CRM associated with as yet undetermined Human Factors. I do find it "a bit of a stretch" to blame the systems/human interface when many similar situations have been successfully handled by other crews. All this crew were required to do is detailed in AF SOPs.
It is all well and fine to put something down in a written SOP, but if you do not test people to verify their understanding of the SOP, then you are asking for major violations of the SOP.
Since PF & PNF had apparently not had a chance to demonstrate flight in cruise in ALT2 law under UAS conditions, they were open to uncorrected misunderstandings.
If the regular sim sessions were not long enough to exercise this capability, then they were not long enough. Any misunderstanding should have been found and fixed. That falls right on the bean counter's and upper management's heads.