It has already been established that when the A/P disconnected the aircraft experienced a sudden pitch up contributing to the loss of control.

This is very unlikely. The AP caused a pitch up in response to decaying airspeed, yes, BUT... the aircraft was flying quite happily at FL375 for about 2 minutes before the pilot applied a constant pitch-up in response to a stall warning.WHY DID THE PILOT PITCH UP WHEN THE AIRCRAFT STARTED SCREAMING STALL???? The stall alerts started because the pitots cleared and IAS jumped from < 60 kts to 154 kts or so, removing the stall warning inhibition caused by the low airspeed measurement.From this point on all the way to impact, the pilot sat with full aft side-stick. What the hell was he thinking? Why did 3 pilots not spot the altimeter going crazy? Why did none of the pilots attempt stall recovery? Why did none of the pilots apply the pitch/power memory item as they were supposed to? Why didn't any of the pilots apparently notice the +13 degrees of pitch trim and point out that they were massively low on airspeed?The Captain not being on the flight deck is irrelevant. Their experience on type seems a rather moot point, too. What the hell made them all miss apparently obvious details, and react the way they did?So many questions, so few answers...Best regards,Robin.

Aircraft pitching violently on disconnect of the autopilot is not unknown, in fact it is one of the things to watch out for in deteriorating conditions when on autopilot, especially with ice about, as is likely in a thunderstorm; ice accretion can force the autopilot to put pressure on the stick to maintain the commanded speed, and if the autopilot then disconnects, the aircraft can be well out of trim.Not suggesting this is the scenario here, but merely that when the autopilot goes off, the trim can indeed be way out.Al

Kind of makes you wonder what they were thinking with all those stick back control inputs. The only thing I can think of is that without visual references and perhaps no artificial horizon, they might have thought they were steeply nose down based on the descent rate without realising they were already at a very high angle of attack, made even worse by the slow speed and high rate of descent. Of course when the crew said they were getting near 10,000 feet, they probably realised they were running out of room, and sticking the nose down at that height would have been something they probably didn't want to do.It's very odd. Kind of weird that they were told to maintain 35,000, but went up a lot higher too.Al

I would guess they were aiming their pitch for a glide, not having recognized they were in a stall, and the airplane performing not outside what expected given the storm they were in. The stall warnings can be thought to be unreliable due to bad Air Data, and I wouldn't be surprised if the airplane felt as if it were flying okay to pilot input. IMC and heavy turbulence will throw your body senses entirely off course. the Air Data failures+intermittent stall warnings is going to throw off the Instrument pilot senses (You have to digest the information presented, IMO they digested pretty well by the book).Ryan

Pilots do not intentionally fly aircraft into major storms unless you work for NASA.This accident like others shows how automation is striping the pilot of "stick time" and just flying the plane.Automation is great when it works, but unfortunately many pilots today don't get much hand flying experience.And when you're forced to hand fly, it's generally under conditions you don't want to be hand flying in.The main event that caused this accident was the loss of airspeed caused by pitot tube failure (icing?).We all know many accidents are the result of many little events coming together to create the main event.Events- Flying at night over the ocean, eye sight or vision outside the cockpit next to nil. Seeing a line of thunderstorms ahead will be greatly restricted so you must rely on "automation" or wx radar.- Senior Captain was not in the cockpit at time of emergency. - Did their wx radar tick them? Radar can't see everything. A line of smaller thunderstorms can block the radars ability to see a more hazardous line of thunderstorms behind the first line. Once they passed the first line, it could've been too late to avoid the more intense second line of storms.- Severe icing at FL350. Rare, but for pitot tubes to fail due to icing at that flight level, one must ask the question. If icing was so severe that pitot heat failed, what did the wings look like? Did the aircraft stall due to icing? Was wing anti-ice turned on? Did the pilots know they had ice? - A history of Pitot tubes failure on the A330. Faultily or not?After the automation failed (autopilot/auto thrust shut down)Events- Pilots ability/experience to hand fly at night, in heavy icing, in a major thunderstorm. What down drafts did these thunderstorms produce?Mother Nature is unbeatable many times.- Alarms sounding, lights flashing, more alarms and failures, which checklist to follow? Should you be following a checklist at such a time? - Pilots are trained and told time and time again, trust your instruments. At what point did the pilots say, I can't trust airspeed information, and if airspeed information is wrong, I can't trust my altimeter? Alot of information to absorb and analyze while alarms sound, let alone flying in a thunderstorm. After the airspeed failure, pilot in command should apply climb thrust with 5 degree nose up attitude and fly the plane.Easy for me to say, while I sit in warm cozy chair on a sunny afternoon and criticize the actions dead pilots. Humans make mistakes and they make more mistakes when they're in-experienced. That's the whole purpose of automation, making less mistakes, but is automation causing humans to become in-experienced?RJ

Great post, I mentioned a while ago that I lost a close friend in Bahrain when an A320 (with no faults) nose dived into the sea of the coast of Manama killing everyone onboard.It took me a long time to wrap my head around why the flight crew acted the way they did. Most here will understand somatogravic illusion, you can't fully train for it in the sim, you may think you are making the correct side stick/yoke inputs but in reality you are making the situation worse.

Looking at the wild variations it altitude and angle of attack it clearly demonstrates why you should not get anywhere near storms. "especially" inter-tropical convergence storms.vololiberista

As Robin said "WHY DID THE PILOT PITCH UP WHEN THE AIRCRAFT STARTED SCREAMING STALL???? " (his capitals). I fly real world - admittedly (and sadly) not Airbuses, but the automatic reaction when nearing stall is to point the nose down - and they had 35,000' of altitude. The report states the nose-up attitude of the a/c continued all the way to the sea. Unless the elevators were jammed (no evidence of that as yet) - why? Well a rhetorical question that, but it is staggering. What on earth would account for pilots angling a stalling a/c nose-up?Martin

"Why did the pilot pitch up"? I'm sure we'll never know exactly what happened. To many little factors all coming together.Chock offered one reason why a nose up attitude after pilot disconnect, aircraft out of trim.What about storm updraft, or pilot inattention due to all the alarms and failures being presented?Or worse, what about automation? I know the pilot was flying manually, but how did the automation play role?Pilots today are faced with "automation dependency" which in my opinion causes "automation surprise".Pilots are forced to depend upon lines of computer code to safely fly aircraft these days. The problem arises when pilots are not aware what happens when a particular instrument fails and how automation deals with the failure. I remember when the first Airbuses started flying, pilots where often heard saying "now what is it doing?" And it's not just Airbus that has surprises, its Boeing as well.Take Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 as an example.A 737-800NG on short final (pilots using automation to land) with auto throttle on and a faulty radio altimeter. The pilots knew they had a faulty radio altimeter, what they didn't know, is how the "automation" would deal with such a failure during landing. Because of the incorrect radio altimeter reading near the ground, the auto throttle commanded a thrust reduction to both engines ('retard flare' mode). Both pilots never noticed the mode change before it was too late and the aircraft crashed short of the runway. Essential "automation" shut the engines off on short final.RJ

So does anybody reckon that this is pointing toward an official judgement of pilot error? Or just inconclusive?

So does anybody reckon that this is pointing toward an official judgement of pilot error? Or just inconclusive?

Most likely the blame will fall upon the pilots for:1. Flying into bad weather.2. Not recovering.RJ

To me it points to a recurring problem with modern glass cockpit a/c. And that is the pilots have become so used to letting the computer do everything and deciphering error messages that they forget the basics of flying. Unfortunately not every airline retrains their pilots in basic manoevres and this is a bone of contention that really now should be addressed.It it quite amazing and shocking that in the AF case "three" pilots "including" the captain did not identify the stall. If I am in a substantial nose up attitude and at the same time plunging toward the ground. It's a stall. So initiate stall recovery. The only thing that perhaps would go in their favour is that in the storm it is quite easy for the control surfaces to become over stressed and break off. That would certainly degrade any recovery attempt. The basics of flying are and should be taught and practiced until they become completely instinctive. As said, that is dependent on the respective Aviation Authority and airline.vololiberista

To me it points to a recurring problem with modern glass cockpit a/c. And that is the pilots have become so used to letting the computer do everything and deciphering error messages that they forget the basics of flying. Unfortunately not every airline retrains their pilots in basic manoevres and this is a bone of contention that really now should be addressed.vololiberista

Your assumptions concerning the accident and pilot training are (as usual) just weird guessing and to accuse AF of not training their pilots correctly is simply intolerable.>It it quite amazing and shocking that in the AF case "three" pilots "including" the captain did not identify the stall. >If I am in a substantial nose up attitude and at the same time plunging toward the ground. It's a stall. So initiate stall recoveryJust a short note concering the FBW and pitot icing:If the pitot tube starts icing it's not new a fact that it starts indicating a higher speed...even well above Vmo/Mmo. Crashes for that reason did happen already decades ago and pilots have learned from that.If you are in normal law in an Airbus and the plane senses an overspeed condition the flight enevelope protection starts pulling the nose up automatically and you can't do anything against that.The famous non-FBW A310 crash during a go-around also demonstrates that it's not always a good idea to give the computers the authority to take the plane completely away from the pilots. Accusing the AF pilots of not recognising a stall with a lot of conflicting info is not appropriate at all. Same goes for blaming it on the 'glass cockpit' and forgetting the basics.

"Accusing the AF pilots of not recognising a stall with a lot of conflicting info is not appropriate at all."Yes. That three experienced pilots didn't detect an existing stall condition is not so much 'amazing & shocking' as unbelievable, which leads to the conclusion that the evidence of such a condition was not available to them, for whatever reason (or maybe for the reason that they were trying to fly a plane within something resembling a gargantuan tumble-dryer).

I think you have to bear in mind that if it turns out the crew could have done things better, then it certainly would not be the first time airline pilots had done something unbelievably stupid; you only have to look at the L-1011 crash some years ago where all three people on the flight deck were arsing around with a light bulb when the aircraft flew into the ground.Of course we should be careful to give the AF crew a fair hearing, but if it turns out they were at fault, then it would be entirely appropriate to say so. The investigators should not be afraid to call a spade a spade, and if it turns out to be the crew's error, any perceived unwritten law about speaking ill of the dead should not get in the way of being crystal clear about the causes of the crash, for if they are not, we will learn nothing from the whole tragic incident, which is all we can hope to do.The same goes for if there is any system on the aircraft which might not have helped the situation too of course, for example, the throttle levers not physically moving with the thrust settings when in auto modes. There can be little doubt that the Airbus is a technological marvel, but if either training, understanding, or the complexity of its systems and the reliance upon them gets in the way of basic airmanship when things go awry, then that clearly needs to be looked at.Al

Enough experienced pilots have flown servicable aircraft into the ground (CFIT) to invalidate the simplistic conclusions being drawn in this thread.

"...you only have to look at the L-1011 crash some years ago where all three people on the flight deck were arsing around with a light bulb when the aircraft flew into the ground."In fairness to the crew on that Tristar, though, the First Officer's AP light was still lit due to faulty computer programming. I have to say that reading the cockpit voice recorder transcript does rather justify the phrase, "arsing around with a light bulb." That nobody was scanning the instruments, given the altitude they were at, is astonishing. Hopefully lessons about over-reliance on automated systems were learned from that incident.