Originally Posted by Orville W
I'll take you task on this Solyent. From the cognitive perspective you have considered a limited set of factors....but assuming your argument holds for the cognitive circumstances prevailing in the cockpit, the accident still does not make sense. The cognitive environment informing the aircraft and avionics designers - even after all the accidents and incidents we have had over many years - leaves much to be desired. Bad HMI engineering, poor scenario modeling, poor checks on corner cases/bounday cases, poor design processes and inadequate checks (as well as poor pitot design) have led to a situation where, possibly, a set of cognitive elements have conspired to deliver this outcome. Bad, bad design and the usual chain of events at work.
Are they entirely, or even primarily to blame? They most certainly are. They are charged as professional pilots to mantain complete discipline and situational awareness in the cockpit at all times. No distractions, no excuses. They accepted the rank, pay and responsibility. They failed. Bad circumstances no doubt. Sensory confusion, loss of external references....never fun. But their responsibility through and through).
As a current, qualified narrow body Airbii Captain, I can say this:
One doesn't know what one doesn't know.
Before this accident, and this online forum, I had only the computer based training given by my airline and the Airbus AOMVol one from which to draw from for tech info. I passed a type rating course and checked out on the line with what I now know to be a very minimal understanding of how the Airbus is controlled.
Fortunately, in six years in the Airbus I've never experienced anything close to what happened to AF447. Had I have had the experience, I think I would have relied on twenty years of experience flying cable controlled, steam gauge turbo jets and discovered a way to overcome the problems. However, when you take two guys with nothing but Airbus cruise experience, who I must assume were trained the same as most of the rest of us, and you place them in a surprise situation in which their airplane presents them with conflicting/confusing information......I think you'll end up with AF447 more times than not.
If it makes you feel good blaming the pilots, go ahead, I won't change your mind. But if you consider ever flying as SLF, you might want to hope that this accident changes at least: training, procedures, and CRM procedures for Airbus control and "surprise" events.