Airbus has said nothing of the sort. A journalist with possibly his own axe to grind (and book to publicise) against AF has said it.

Airbus has sent out a communication stating that it has no recommendations to issue to operators at this time - that's all. There may be recommendations in future, and there have already been some regarding pitots. The aircraft is not in the clear.

There appear to be quite a number of people very unpleasantly surprised by Airbus' quick statement.

French State Secretary Thierry Mariani was quoted by Le Nouvel Observateur this evening, calling Airbus' statement "premature not to say inappropriate".
(my translation, please correct if I am mistaken)

The big question remains, why the management team at Airbus would feel this to be the right step at this early stage, without having consulted the responsible partners and authorities.

Denis

Source:
Le secrétaire d'Etat aux Transports Thierry Mariani est allé jusqu'à juger "prématuré voire déplacé" de tirer des conclusions.
Le Nouvel Observateurhttp://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualite/societe/20110517.OBS3371/rio-paris-airbus-a-t-il-parle-trop-vite.html

what was wrong with just avoiding the storm like everyone else?

Come on guys, you are drawing conclusions and axioms four days after BEA started to unravel the data - just like in June 2009. And we know from the many and sad accidents in the past that there are going to be several factors leading to a chain of events.

Is the transcript of the CVR usually made public in French investigations of this sort?

Important excerpts will be quoted as in the Toronto accident e.g.

Quick question or two:
Why has it taken so long to resume the search?
Why was it stopped in the first place?
Adam air apparently could not afford to do their search but AF, Airbus,EADS and the whole European Union?Come on.................

I smell rotten cheese.

Wet

The search stopped in the stormy season because it couldn't continue under those conditions.

Still smell cheese?

Flying in a storm in the ITCZ, at night, with dodgy speed sensors, and more particularly at a "Coffin Corner" flight level. Seems a pretty clear case of pilot error to me.

AIT #7
 

Quite possibly Airbus may have received a number of questions from A330 operators, and decided, with BEA agreement, to broadcast a "nothing new so far" message, instead of answering each question.

vee-tail-1

Don't you mean "lack of pilot skill" rather than pilot error?
The automatics in the modern airliner are drastically reducing pilot skills as their hands-on times approach zero. Simulators help but there is no substitute for knowing how the real thing feels when the automatics quit especially near the edges of the handling/performance envelope.

And what the hell were they doing in that weather when everybody was keeping clear of it ?
Who cares how they handled it once in this nasty spot, I most probably would not have done any better.
What interests me is what happened before.......and why.

hear, hear:D:D:D:D:D

vee-tail-1
 

Ah well, that's it decided, why bother with the investigation?

Do we as yet know there were in a "storm" (sic.)

Flying at night - hardly pilot error.

Dodgy speed sensors - hardly pilot error.

"Coffin Corner" - What's your definition? Less than 10/20/40 knots between Vs 1.3 and Mmo?

vtail, are you a pilot? If you are you can't be a very good one!:} what i do know is that you are a PINHEAD!!

v-tail

I recommend you go back to about June 1 2009, and the posts in the original thread, and the original search thread. Consider how many seasoned pilots who fly transocean routes at similar altitudes offered up some initial insights on what faces such a crew. See also the weather reconstruction info in those threads by a very thorough meteorologist.

Put another way, reductionist summation like yours masks something called "causal factors."

Happy reading.

A lot of rubbish being talked on this thread.
Don't forget this an Airbus! If the Prims & Secs get the wrong information the flight controls will become un-useable due to their envelope protection functions. You have to get down to direct law to restore order, which will allow the pilot to set attitude & power. Lets stop saying pilot error till the facts are known.

Damn right IcePack. And to achieve direct law you need to disconnect 2 Prims and one Sec, if I recall correct. This by means of a Bulletin published by AB. Furthermore this has to be done on the overhead panel.
Now just imagine you find yourself in a sudden upset in a complete unusual attitude with erroneous instrument indications. - Good luck in even finding that panel, notwithstanding being able to push the correct pushbuttons in due time...

It might be that the crew should/could have avoided such upset, but once in a such, the aircraft design sure as hell does not help a lot to get out of it.

- this is quite frightening! Are you guys seriously telling us that there is no quick, easy button press to allow back side-stick to raise the elevator and you have to go groping around on the overhead pushing buttons?

Someone with a non-aviation background recently asked me ,following a short discussion about this accident ,why I wasn't so keen to give up my 737 & fly instead the "wunderplane".
I used the analogy of losing control & skidding towards a huge drop in your car whilst simultaneously being faced with entering a code on your mobile phone to effect a recovery, in preference to merely grabbing the wheel &/or standing on the brakes.
I thought at the time I was perhaps being slightly facetious/tongue -in-cheek.

Maybe I wasn't ?:eek: