[andrewcooke]

that was something i didn't really understand, to be honest. it seemed that the airbus computer goes into a "minimal" (ie "dumb") mode when it detects inconsistent inputs. the implication being (i think) that it does no more than support basic fly-by-wire. so it's not clear to me how that is so different from turning off the computer in a boeing. in either case you're effectively flying "unaided".

if the airbus computer had crashed, or had some kind of fault, then sure, better to not have a computer. but that didn't seem to be the case here.

and yet, at the same time, it seems that the plane simply stalled and fell out of the sky. when i was fascinated by planes as a kid i learnt that a stall was easily recoverable in airliners, unless they were the old "T tail" design (the rear controls end up in the turbulent wake from the stalled wing and you need to side-slip into a kind of flat spin to recover control). so if they had control, why didn't they recover? and why bother rebooting the computer? there's a suggestion that the pilots were simply incompetent and lost without the computer enhanced controls.

[nfnaaron]

"there's a suggestion that the pilots were simply incompetent and lost without the computer enhanced controls."

You fight how you train. They were probably trained to do what they did.