Hmmm, lovely reading on a day I am due to fly with Air France across the globe!
It is easy to blame Bonin for being such an idiot and pulling on the stick all the time but it is a natural reaction, just like inexperienced drivers continuing to lock the brakes while skidding off the road. How many die that way every day?
More worrying to me is that the whole plane control is inherently and crazily unsafe. Whatever were the designers thinking, making the two sets of controls without cross-feedback and even 'averaging their inputs' ?!? Whatever were they thinking introducing flabby delays between stick movements and control surfaces? Ever tried to play a computer game with a two seconds delay of the controls?
The actual cause of the crash is this. There were three pilots trying to fly that plane at the same time: the computer, plus the two co-pilots. I guess four, if you include the captain chiming in from the back. Neither of them had any information or understanding or confidence about what the others were doing, due to no particular fault of their own. In such circumstances, adding and withdrawing auto-pilots, plus adding different 'computer modes' is totally insane and only adds to the confusion.
At least you can find some comfort in that AF447 was the first fatal accident with the type, and that there's been continuous improvement throughout the years (including replaced pitot probes). But bigger design problems might have gone unadressed because it's difficult to justify a major change in a certified design until it causes an accident.
It is easy to blame Bonin for being such an idiot and pulling on the stick all the time but it is a natural reaction, just like inexperienced drivers continuing to lock the brakes while skidding off the road. How many die that way every day?
More worrying to me is that the whole plane control is inherently and crazily unsafe. Whatever were the designers thinking, making the two sets of controls without cross-feedback and even 'averaging their inputs' ?!? Whatever were they thinking introducing flabby delays between stick movements and control surfaces? Ever tried to play a computer game with a two seconds delay of the controls?
The actual cause of the crash is this. There were three pilots trying to fly that plane at the same time: the computer, plus the two co-pilots. I guess four, if you include the captain chiming in from the back. Neither of them had any information or understanding or confidence about what the others were doing, due to no particular fault of their own. In such circumstances, adding and withdrawing auto-pilots, plus adding different 'computer modes' is totally insane and only adds to the confusion.
My conclusion: design fault (over engineering)