Winnhofer, I understand your point on flying is suboptimal conditions. It can raise the pucker factor, to be sure.
One of the things that you rely on it situations that begin to go pear shaped is training. I had a few brown flight suit nights over the dark, no horizon oceans that all worked out in the end ... not because I was some sky god or some super pilot, not hardly. It worked out because we were trained, had procedures for dealing with things going wrong, and the crew (both pilots and the crew in the back) worked together to get us back to the ship in one piece.
As I commented to Clandestino, I get the impression from the transcripts we have available that the flight deck crew were in a problem solving mode (though it seems that they were behind the aircraft), and grew frustrated as well. I don't get from that limited representation of the event sequence the symptoms of fear.
But it may have played a part. We don't know.
If it did, that's another area of concern for Air France, in terms of training, and possibly at other airlines.
What do you have to fall back on when things begin to go wrong?
Your training and proficiency are key resources at such times.