As to AF447, the "failure" was that the plane did not have an ANGLE OF ATTACK display, so once all the fancy control systems failed, and since when they were flying through clouds,...couldn't see the horizon,...they were "blind".
Apparently the plane stalled and pancaked into the ocean, if the pilots had an ANGLE OF ATTACK display, they might have had a chance.
That plane doesn't even have a proper control stick in front of the pilots, as similar Boeing aircraft do,...just some joy stickers off in the corner.
Big law suits going on in Europe.
This one that crashed, is similar.
No expert here, just reporting what I read.
FAST
Few civil aircraft actually have an angle of attack indicator; typically only those with a T-Tail. There are angle of attack probes installed on Airbus, but they are used internally by the flight control system.
That they were flying through cloud at night and could not see the horizon was just one of many factors. The attitude indicators did not fail, however, and they should have referenced themselves to those; but they did not believe them (one each on the 2 Primary Flight Displays and one stand-alone standby AI) , because of the disorientation due to the multitude of audio and visual warnings of system failures and backup reversions generated as a result of the pitot probes icing up.
The amount of 'bells and whistles' caused by the resulting system failures and reversion to backup modes overwhelmed and disoriented the relatively inexperienced pilot flying. So it's questionable whether this pilot, nor the more experienced non-flying pilot, would have paid any attention to an angle of attack indicator anyway. For example, the GPS/IRU generated ground speed is continuously displayed on the navigation display, and if he was afraid of overspeeding (hence pulling up), it would have been apparent that they were not.
All they had to do, according to procedure, was to maintain 3-5 degrees positive pitch, and set 85% thrust on the N1 (fan speed), until they few out of cloud. Instead, the pilot flying pulled back, ostensibly thinking that the stall protection inherent in the Airbus design would save them. Apart from zooming the aircraft to an altitude that was unsustainable for flight, the automated flight control system reverted to it's next backup mode and could not provide the stall protection. The flight control stick design does not provide feedback of the pilot flying's inputs to the other pilot's stick, so the other pilot was unaware that the pilot flying was continuously pulling on his stick and keeping the aircraft stalled. The pilot not flying did not assert himself as pilot-in-charge sufficiently by taking over control, even though he started clueing in on what the problem was.
The fundamental cause was the failure of Air France to provide training for cruise altitude loss of airspeed indication. The procedure contains memory items, plus not having actually experienced it in the simulator, they were not prepared for the actual event. Contrary to most post accident back-seat afterthoughts by laypersons, it's not as simple as a single instrument.
I would be surprized if the cause of this latest crash is the same as the AF447 one. The faulty design pitot tubes should all have been replaced by now. It's most likely that, in the vicinity of thunderstorms, after requesting an altitude change to get above one (which was denied) instead of requesting a lateral deviation, they actually flew into one that resulted in a jet upset. Thunderstorm lines can rapidly develop, making it impossible to turn around if leaving the decision too late.
This person has over 4000 hours on the A320.
