[magellan]

The attitude indicators (artificial horizon) are driven by the Inertial Reference Units (IRUs, a.k.a. INS), not the pitot static system. Stalling is only dependent on angle of attack, so they knew they were in a nose up situation, and based on the cockpit voice recorder, they knew airspeed indications were unreliable.

This was suicide by ignorance. Get the nose down, break the stall, level the airplane, and fly it by power settings (instead of airspeeds). Once out of the icing environment, the ice wil sublimate off of the pitot static system.

I trust U.S. airline pilots more than foreign airline pilots.

[Erasmus]

This prompts me to recall more of the TV program I saw.

They piped the conditions they believed the 447 pilots encountered into an Airbus simulator with a highly experienced crew, and they pancaked in too.

The program said that training for Air France pilots has now been changed to cover this situation. I seem to recall an expert on the program mentioning “fly-by-throttle.”

[raygun]

I was waiting for someone to pipe up and say Airbus procedures are somethow deficient. This is from the current Boeing 747FCTM. Please note there is a difference between the approach to the stall, and a stall. The general public does not understand the difference, but for someone who is is employed flying a wide body aircraft, it should be fundamental knowledge.

Would you be surprised to learn that the Airbus approach to the stall recovery is almost identical to the Boeing one, the Airbus target pitch attitude is actually lower at higher altitudes?

[expatpat]

If your ASI is showing you are at the NTE (not-to-exceed) speed, the last thing you want to do is lower the nose. Losing a wing is much less attractive at altitude than getting into a stall.