[slacktide]

Predicated on their assumption that the flight control laws would prevent a nose-up control input from stalling the aircraft, and not realizing that the aircraft was in alternate law. Some of the last words on the CVR from the pilot flying were “But I’ve been at maxi nose-up for a while” while the computer was shouting STALL STALL STALL in the background.

[VBprogrammer]

You ever have the experience when you listen to someone speak with a strong accent, you don't quite catch the beginning of a word and the whole of what they say sounds like a foreign language?

I imagine that is how those poor pilots felt as their instruments screamed conflicting information at them as they tore through the skies above the mid-atlantic.

[mrguyorama]

A huge problem with that incident is that as the plane got deeper into the stall, the computer decided it couldn't get an accurate idea of what was going on and STOPPED giving the stall warning. This lead to the crummy situation where pulling back on the stick made the warnings go away, despite being the exact opposite control input required.

This situation is 100% opposite of basic stall recovery, but I don't know how much that still works when you are panicking and no longer feel like you can trust your instruments or your plane

[VBprogrammer]

The phrase "the computer decided" gives way more agency to the computer than it deserves in this instance. In reality it was a simple airspeed threshold below which no one imagined the aircraft actually flying.

It was a really tragic accident with many lessons for anyone involved in the design of critical systems.