Originally Posted by
Concours77
When did the crew recognize and acknowledge the cause of the problem, and the aircraft's response to it?
Shortly before impact, it seems. If you have read the transcript in the BEA report, Captain DuBois recognized that something had gone horribly wrong with his "impossible" at 02 12 43,8 on the CVR. As they went through their problem solving efforts, clear identification of the problem seems to have eluded the crew.
Extracted from the CVR Trascript provided in Appendix 1 to the report
2 h 10 min 03 2 h10 min 04,6 Cavalry charge (autopilot disconnection warning)
2 h 10 min 06,4 Bonin | I have the controls
2 h 10 min 11,0 SV | stall
2 h 10 min 22,1 Robert | alternate law protections- (law/low/lo)
2 h 11 min 01,2 Robert | Above all try to touch the lateral controls as little as possible eh
2 h 11 min 25,7 Robert | Do you understand what’s happening or not?
2 h 11 min 32,6 Bonin |(…) I don’t have control of the airplane any more now
2 h 11 min 34,7 Bonin | I don’t have control of the airplane at all
2 h 11 min 42,5 DuBois | Er what are you (doing)?
2 h 11 min 48,2 Robert | We lost all control of the aeroplane we don’t understand anything we’ve tried everything
2 h 12 min 23,0 Dubois | The wings to flat horizon the standby horizon
2 h 12 min 43,8 DuBois | (…) it’s impossible
2 h 13 min 39,7 Robert | Climb climb climb climb
2 h 13 min 41,2 Bonin | But I’ve been at maxi nose-up for a while
2 h 13 min 42,7 Dubois | no no no don’t climb
2 h 14 min 05,3 DuBois | Watch out you’re pitching up there
2 h 14 min 06,5 Robert | I’m pitching up
2 h 14 min 06,5 DuBois | You’re pitching up
2 h 14 min 07,3 Robert | I’m pitching up
2 h 14 min 07,3 Bonin | Well we need to we are at four thousand feet
2 h 14 min 23,7 Bonin | (!) we’re going to crash
2 h 14 min 24,2 Bonin | This can’t be true
Note: there is quite a bit more on the transcript, but I cut these bits out to illustrate from initiation to almost impact some of the what they were saying as they tried to resolve their problem.