Originally Posted by
vilas
... but here the issue that was being raised was did the protection cause the accident.
I think it's fair to state that the protections didn't "cause the accident" - as there were massive "holes in the cheese" present before the aircraft ever left the ground. Ultimately, I think even the sceptics have to admit that the airline should never have allowed the flight to go ahead without proper review, plus the airmanship and decision-making after getting the airfield visual were questionable.
The question is not about whether the protections "caused the accident" as much as it is whether the slower initial response due to HAP mode made the contact with the trees more substantial than it might have been. At this point I think agreeing to disagree is the best we can manage, because as I said before, there are simply too many variables involved to make a definitive educated guess.
@gums - If there are FBW Airbus pilots who believe they can't stall one under any circumstances (and to be honest I'm sceptical of that), then they clearly haven't read the manuals and training materials properly and require being pulled off the line for immediate remedial training!
I know there's a school of thought that has the AF447 PF pulling up because he was expecting the protections to keep the aircraft in check, but there's no clear evidence of that. The fact is that there have been studies performed into startle response, which found that severe cases of startle will cause a pilot to instinctively pull up in (IIRC) 80% of cases regardless of whether the aircraft has AoA protection or not.