TCAS and GPWS, probably
the big saviours of passengers in the recent decades, have nothing to do with automation dependency. Agree that VNAV has increased safety, but automation certainly hasn't prevented the opportunity for at least a bit of fair-weather hand-flying.
In any case, as Centaurus pointed out, simulators are ideal. We just need the extra time allocated!
Bloggs:- reading page 22 of the BEA report. As soon as the A/P disconnected the PF pulled back, it may not have been full back stick but it caused the stall none the less.
No it didn't. Even after the PF had "flown" it up to 37k, it was still doing 233kt.
At 2 h 10 min 05, the autopilot then the auto-thrust disconnected and the PF said “I have the controls”. The aeroplane began to roll to the right and the PF made a nose-up and left input. The stall warning triggered briefly twice in a row.
Probably because the speeds had dropped from 275 to 60 "sharply" just before.
46 seconds
later, the thing really stalled. Look at the pitch command trace: all he was doing until the thing was descending was waggling the stick around (with a slight nose-up bias).
Then he pulled full back stick.
Implying he pulled full back stick, stalled it and held it til splashdown is simplistic and unfair.These guys got shafted as much by the aeroplane as by their own lack of skill.