In Re RR NDB's post of a 2007 discussion of Unreliable Airspeed in the Airbus family ...
But the main difficulty is to rapidly detect an unreliable speed situation. Reaction time is crucial, since the aircraft may stall and overspeed conditions could cause aircraft damage.
Did the gent in the right seat interpret "safe conduct of the flight" to mean "don't overspeed the aircraft?" There have been a number of estimates that a concern of his was overspeed, and wanting to not do so.
But if the affected ADR cannot be identified, or all ADRs are affected, then the flight crew will fly without speed reference, using the pitch and thrust tables. ... snip a bit ... 4.3 Flying using pitch/thrust tables
The crew never got into the logic tree of methodical trouble shooting that got to this decision point, if their lack of discussion on "which ADR is out at this point" is an indicator.
An unreliable speed situatio may be difficult to identify, due to the multiple scenarios that can lead to it. Therefore, training is a key element: indeed the flight crew's ability to rapid detected the abnormal situation, and to correctely handle it, is cricial.
Anyone at AF have a handle on how to train for this? Some lawyers are probably contemplating villas in St Tropez, betting on the answer being no.
In case of any doubt, the pilot should apply the pitch/thrust memory items, and then refer to the QRH to safely fly the aircraft, and to positively determine the faulty source(s) before eliminating it (them).
WHICH memory items? The ones for TOGA and nose up?
Granted, as has been discussed over and over, most succinctly by PJ2 but also by others, at their flight level, pitch and power for level flight is what was called for, to allow them time to trouble shoot and work through the systems faults. But what was the pilot trained for, and what was his most recent training scenario regarding this malfunction?
This takes us back to question 1, which is what the guy at the controls believed the risks to be to the flight.