Originally Posted by
Lonewolf_50
Given that he had to walk up a 10-12 degree nose up incline to get to the bloody cabin, of course he asked "what are you doing" as soon as he got in, given that he had turned the aircraft over at altitude in level cruise.
Taking into account that significantly before he reached the cockpit the plane had exceeded the apogee of the trajecory and started decending he might not have felt the incline exactly like in a stable environment due to the fact that the inclined floor started falling and deccellerating at the same time. Must have felt interesting. Tilted floor but no additonal effort for climbing up a 10° slope. The decelleration might have masked the incline to some extent.
This fact might have contributed to the captain not exactly recognising the attitude when reaching the cockpit.
So at least a small portion of somatogravic illusion is conceivable.
That said the combined neglect of all three regarding the attitude indication and VSI still seems incomprehensible. Seems they were so overwhelmed and 'in action' that they never tried to step back and develop a mental picture of where and how they were moving in space.