PJ - it certainly looks as you say that the QRH was not well written and that 'inclusion' of the 'Above MSA/Cct Alt' in the memory box 'immediate actions' would have been a better presentation (as 'appears' to have happened in the PDF), since 447 SHOULD have gone straight into the 'Level off for Troubleshooting' branch rather than zooming to the stars. I said a while back that 'going' to 5 degrees for the very short time before the a/c would be levelled off in the 'Above MSA' cruise situation would not really cause a problem, although your point about 'destabilisation' is true. However, leaving aside 'liability' on the QRH writers, it would not be unreasonable, surely, to expect crews of this level and a 'good' training dept to have ironed this out? It appears to come back to a general lack of awareness of what was happening, aka 'airmanship'.
It remains for me, I'm afraid, an inexplicable accident.
Last edited by BOAC; 2nd Jun 2012 at 07:46.