[upofadown]

In this case the pilot attempting to start flying failed to yell "I have control!". They should have only grabbed the stick after the pilot currently flying said "You have control!". It is quite obvious that the pilot that grabbed the stick simply panicked. If the controls had been linked the two pilots would have fought each other and would likely of produced an equally bad result.

In the AF 447 case the pilot not flying did the request, but did not wait for a response before fighting on the controls. The pilot not flying eventually got control, but the pilot initially flying panicked and started fighting on the controls.

Failure to properly request/acknowledge control handover will often create the opposite situation where each pilot thinks the other is flying. The results of that situation will be the same regardless of any mechanical control linkage.

[bjornsing]

> The results of that situation will be the same regardless of any mechanical control linkage.

I highly doubt that. In a fly-by-wire plane with mechanically linked controls the only possible source of force feedback on the controls is input from the other pilot. We humans have a very long evolutionary history of wrestling for control of the same stick. We can recognize that situation on a very deep instinctual level. We can also instinctively realize “that other guy is really pulling hard… am I in the wrong here?” If you remove the force feedback and just average the input then all this is lost.

[upofadown]

If the pilots can't resolve their difference of opinion verbally, things will not go better when they try to physically overpower the other. There are many accidents in the Admiral Cloudberg corpus that involved pilots fighting each other on mechanically linked controls.

[bjornsing]

> If the pilots can't resolve their difference of opinion verbally, things will not go better when they try to physically overpower the other.

The primary problem is not that the pilots can’t resolve their difference of opinion, it’s that they are not aware that they have one.

> There are many accidents in the Admiral Cloudberg corpus that involved pilots fighting each other on mechanically linked controls.

How many of those accidents were in fly-by-wire planes? Again, the primary issue here is lack of feedback / ambiguity. If the plane is not fly-by-wire then it’s very hard for the pilots to understand that they are fighting each other, and not the plane.