Lyman, there are myriad potential unsafe conditions arising from connected yokes (e.g. EgyptAir 990), as well as several accidents where yoke position was not noted.
I'm not saying one is better or worse than the other, I'm saying that they are *both* valid designs.
The LH incident was a failure of procedure. The Captain should have been performing the landing in crosswinds of that magnitude in the first place. The Captain allowing the F/O to continue was a questionable command decision (as was AF447's CDB placing F/O Bonin in charge with doubtful weather ahead and a known icing problem on that type, but I digress), and he then compounded it by mishandling taking control.
With a yoke, the LH Captain would have had to fight the control forces his F/O was making, to which her reaction could have been to pull harder in the opposite direction. On top of that, dual yoke input may not do what you think. There's a school of thought on EgyptAir 990 which has the forward yoke command of the F/O and the rearward yoke command of the Captain causing the elevators to split (one up, one down), causing instant loss of control.
Again, the PNF on AF447 had the tools right in front of him to not only take control, but to lock the PF out for a period if necessary - tools put there by Airbus specifically to ensure safe operation of the aircraft if one of the pilots is not performing correctly. He did not use these tools - why?
Last edited by DozyWannabe; 4th May 2012 at 17:25.