If your car suddenly reduced your turning authority, and you wanted to turn urgently, you'd crank the wheel harder.
The French designed a plane which actively interferes with your authority _while_ you're trying to use it.
And if we're going to give them credit for saving USAir 1549, then we have to give them blame for Air France 447, for making a plane that _averages_ the inputs of the two pilots to arrive at an overall control output, without any real warning, allowing two pilots to split controls and perform controlled flight into the ocean.
You'd have to physically break through the jammed control mechanism to get to that point, otherwise, they're mechanically linked up to a certain amount of pressure.
Anyways, the point is, assigning blame in this way is petty and weird on the authors part.
> You'd have to physically break through the jammed control mechanism to get to that point, otherwise, they're mechanically linked up to a certain amount of pressure.
That's what I said.
Interestingly, the BEA pointed out that the dual input rate is the same on Airbuses and Boeings (cf. https://bea.aero/fileadmin/user_upload/F-GSQJ_finalreport_EN..., page 47). Lack of communication and stressful environment here too, maybe coupled commands would not have saved AF447 after all…
> Anyways, the point is, assigning blame in this way is petty and weird on the authors part.
I agree, but you're doing the same thing as the author of the article: taking the fact that the captain pulled on the stick, and try to find something to blame the plane.
Unlike in your car example where the steering authority is “suddenly” reduced, the flight envelope protection system is always here, and pilots are trained accordingly. Full stick back is not uncommon on Airbuses, e.g. in a windshear escape manoeuvre. And as pointed out by others in this thread, it was actually the correct action. Oh well, if alpha max was 1° higher on the 320, maybe the landing would have been softer.
The French designed a plane which actively interferes with your authority _while_ you're trying to use it.
And if we're going to give them credit for saving USAir 1549, then we have to give them blame for Air France 447, for making a plane that _averages_ the inputs of the two pilots to arrive at an overall control output, without any real warning, allowing two pilots to split controls and perform controlled flight into the ocean.