The hard data is in the ACARS...The crew were not privy. Neither were they privy to data supplied for the post mortem via the recorders. Unwinding a little bit of the conclusionary tone here, Organfreak has repositioned the discussion.
Unless and until the complete record is available, even the BEA report will need a salt shaker.
PJ2:
"....say why the aircraft was pitched up and, more importantly, why it was held there when all of us who fly transports know that the airplane is going to run out of energy with the pitch attitudes recorded in the data."
Without knowing the state of the displays, the rhetoric has the crew in the corner, perhaps forever. It remains to be seen that the conditions were benign re: recovery. By benign I mean framed so by those who would condemn......
Re: Vaughn/Challenger. I never thought the Challenger case due malevolence. The incident happened post launch, thus inviting hindsight bias from the outset.
What I do think, is that Staff made a decision that involved risk management, out of their job description, and without proper oversight. Doubt can save the poodle, or kill it....In the Challenger case, the structural process was abdicated/co-opted, by those who ignored the safeguards. Negligent? Of course....
It is chilling to think that these situations can crop up just as they did when we did not know "better".....