Originally Posted by IcePack
Air France report the statement "we have no indications"....what was meant by that statement from the F/O....so is the pfd blank in both these accidents?
I think the AF447 "no indications" statement meant no airspeed indications or possibly no flight director indications.
I have never read any information that either AF447 or AirAsia had blanked out or malfunctioning EADIs. In both cases the big blue/brown horizon on the PFD was accurately showing the extreme pitch angle the PF had commanded.
It appears the pilot's cognition had degraded so they could not mentally process that "blue is up and brown is down" and take the obvious action.
If so that is a more profound and basic issue than automation dependency. It involves human factors and psychology under stress. If they could not mentally process and act on the simple blue/brown PFD, it is possible they might not have reacted to stick shakers either.
It is possible that more research is needed on human behavior under stress. However it is difficult and expensive to obtain this, since authentically reproducing the environment is difficult and only a small % of the population will behave that way.