For what it's worth, I think the trim issue is fairly inconsequential - because the stall situation was not identified in time by the crew. As I've said numerous times, the autotrim had potential for salvation because with sustained nose-down on the PFC it would have corrected itself without needing to touch the trim wheels.
Maybe if there was an attempt to force the nose down and keep it there in the last minute I may feel differently, but the fact is that the PF was pulling up practically all the way down. As such, failure to recognise the situation and use CRM to remedy it is considerably higher on my list of priorities.
Fundamentally though, the existence of Alternate Law is to provide the pilot with handling characteristics as close to normal as possible despite degraded systems functionality, and to suggest taking that away because of one incident where it worked marginally against the crew (in response to the handling pilot making inappropriate inputs) would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater as far as I'm concerned.
Incidentally - something that the documentary clued me into that I hadn't considered before regards the sudden switch to pulling up on the part of the PNF (and confirmed by the Captain), and that was the sound of the GPWS "PULL UP" warning at 02:14:17.
[EDIT : I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I almost had skin in the game. A fellow musician and friend of mine almost boarded AF447 that day, but elected to stay in Rio for a few more days.]
Last edited by DozyWannabe; 22nd Sep 2012 at 01:15.