@BOAC
This is pure speculation, but sadly it seems just as likely that the startle response was so complete that any thoughts of procedure never even got a look-in.
By saying this, I am absolutely not denigrating the unfortunate crew - as I said in the other thread, even the best have bad days.
Originally Posted by
Lyman
...I defy any one here to state they would be available instantly to gauge coldly if the flight became endangered with the unexpected loss of a/p.
It could be argued that in those weather conditions, at that time of night, any deviation from normal operation has the potential to endanger the flight!
and the initial corrections applied were correct.
A pull to 15 degrees nose-up is certainly *not* correct, no matter which way you slice it.
Dozy, are you sure the Stick shaker/pusher has been abandoned in favor of FBW? 50's technology? The 330 cannot fly with the best Stall Warn available? The Warn that trumps even the speed/AoA aural that was dismissed/ignore by the crew?
History has shown that even with a stick shaker, crews can and will disregard a stall warning if it does not fit their mental model of how the flight is proceeding.
And the finest Stall recovery tool, the Pusher? Are you saying that Airbus will improve the aural qualities of its SW, and that will be sufficient.
Aural *and* visual - it can't do any worse than the shaker and pusher have done historically.
The stick pusher is not the "finest" anything - it was a product of its time. If you read HTBJ you'll find anecdotes from DP Davies about how many contemporary line pilots hated the thing and didn't trust it. Whether that enmity was justified or not, the fact is that stick pushers were only ever compulsory on G-registered aircraft of a certain vintage.
It can be argued that the pusher was really only necessary on T-tail aircraft, as the conventional empennage layout is not susceptible to the "deep stall" condition - and in fact aeronautical engineers design airframes to develop a nose-down tendency at the stall without requiring control input. The A330 is no exception - in this case the natural tendency was defeated by the PF who held the primary flight controls in a nose-up position for the majority of the sequence.
Modern aircraft with yoke controls retain the shaker (which can be - and has been - ignored with fatal results), but the pusher has moved into history across the industry. The FBW designs from both major manufacturers, rather than providing automatic stall recovery, instead try to prevent the aircraft from approaching stall in the first place, whether via hard protections in the case of Airbus, or by increasing opposing yoke force in the case of Boeing - and as I said above, the aircraft are designed to naturally nose-down at the stall. Sadly, no amount of design can prevent human interaction from defeating the failsafes.