As a GA pilot who relies on stick and rudder skills. have been following this thread and feel quite concerned, even though obviously the results of the investigation are to be made.
I am concerned because there are perhaps some RPT Airline crews out there may have forgotten their basic training from the first 20 hours of their original flight training on:
1. Stall recovery - concerned that it appears that alarms about the Air Asia plane stalling were blaring for like 3 minutes - was the basic stall recovery of push the stick or column down/forward to reduce the AoA totally forgotten? including the use of the rudder to unstall a wing?
2. Taking care or avoiding flying through thunderstorms - when we all studied MET what were we taught? Thunderstorms have incredible energy that can tear an aircraft apart - concerned that tight time schedules and familiarity have bred contempt for these powerful weather phenomenon. As others have said, then Airlines crews decide to become Test Pilots it will eventually lead to disaster.
3. Over reliance on automation - too many systems designed to reduce workloads - what about actually knowing how to fly the plane without these? Today's aircraft are inherently more stable, less likely to stall and designed to be smoother in flight but it all can come apart if we let a computer pilot us rather than us piloting the plane.
Hope there are some good learning out of this tragic accident and the loss of life has not been in vein and contributes to improved safety in the RPT Airline industry.