Report in the balance
Having been able to read the complete report only once (certainly requires more than one read). and following Pprune. My first impression... Sorry that it is a bit long, but I want to start with the balance, and then indicate where I think it tilts the wrong way.
The report is more, but also less, than was expected or hoped for (on PPrune). In some places it has more information than required. In some very important places less than required. And also contains information that you do not expect (and as far as I know should not be) in an accident report.
More than expected by some, because it gives a good impression of the sequence of events. Good enough for the informed reader to get a baseline understanding and test the conclusions. A baseline which gives part of the answers you are looking for, but in this case also creates a foundation for asking some questions that are suggested but not explicitely answered by the report.
More information than required, because of the multiple copy/paste pages. Excerpts plus source reference would improve reading and ease of understanding. The larger pieces of text should have been moved to appendices.
Certainly less information than required because of the INCOMPREHENSIBLE omission of an almost complete sound and voice CVR transcript (with normal privacy protection). Incomprehensible, because of this specific accident, recent previous accidents (AF447 A330, Mali AA MD83, MH370 B777) and the primairy accident report purpose of prevention and future aviation safety.
This 'type' of LOC accidents (rare, but deadly, as they are) MUST provide us with increasingly MORE detailed FACTS (and thereby understanding, and thereby foundation for improving design and training) of what has happened in the cockpit. Next to a complete sound and voice transcript, there should at least be a 'voice stress level analysis' covering a timeline of at least the start of the master warnings till just before impact). If there is a 'startle moment' for each pilot you want to 'see', 'sync', and 'feel' them. Key in this type of accident are 'man','man/man' and 'man/machine'. The report does not provide these required FACTS. You would expect an ICAO request by now to ask for a full CVR transcript in 'Good Aircraft but LOC' cases.
Information that you certainly do not expect in an accident report is an extensive list of the actions of the operator adressed to the accident investigator based on an interim report. Positive as the actions may be, you expect these to be adressed to the regulator (DGCA), and for the regulator to put them in publications and Lessons Learned. Insertion in an accident report is not appropriate. The report is about accident facts, analysis, and safety recommendations. The actions are literally 'after the fact'.
Explicit questions that you get, if you want to reduce the number of probable scenario's (and could well have been stated and explicitely answered by the NTSC in the report), are:
A. "If the pilots had just followed the usual ECAM instructions and cleared the warnings in their normal manner, would that have been enough to continue the flight without any subsequently required pilot intervention?".
B. Same question as A. but now with the BEA suggested use of the CLR/CLEAR pushbutton.
C. How much time would it take to perform A. and B. respectively?
D. Would it require a pilot to stand up or even leave his seat?
Note - Explicitely asking and answering these questions does not assign responsibility and/or blame.
Another question is of course, rumours early on suggested this being 'true', "DID the CAPT leave his seat to pull CBs"? It is clear from the report that the NTSC does not want to state this explicitely.Note that Silk Air 185 has a comparable issue ! That case shows detailed CB CVR analysis ! If the NTSC does this because of lack of evidence, then in future you would expect a safety recommendation for CBs to also generate sufficient sound (already 'loud' in overload) in manual pull/push cases !
I have been in discussions where availability and accessibility of CBs in the cockpit was the main subject. If he indeed did leave his seat, then that would validate the fear of some designers, and would invalidate the certainty of some pilots that this would never happen. Today you would have to put 'leave seat' on the list of items and add a probability value to that. And include in pilot-training items like the effect of WoW-switches for instance. And in ground-engineer-training add items about how to communicate with pilots ... "we/you can reset this, but ONLY on the GROUND"... It would be very interesting knowing what the ground engineer LITERALLY said at the time. In this context his statement gets the same importance as an airborne CVR remark.