Originally Posted by Lyman
I still believe the crash was a foregone conclusion within fifteen seconds after loss of autopilot.
I disagree - A few here have mentioned FL200 as the last call and it would be also my guess, maybe 5000 feet lower ... ?
It means the captain had 90 seconds to correctly evaluate the situation before taking or directing the corrective actions.
But first things first, the BEA had to evaluate what was the influence of the autotrim in the process.
Take the same airplane, one with no autotrim under stall warning, one which trims almost to the stop.
Before developing HF the BEA had to first extensively analyze the technical aspects ... Instead of that they kept silent on what Airbus is not interested to see discussed.