[nchaimov]

> It was not announced in big, red letters that the fly-by-wire system had in fact been deactivated

It was announced in medium-sized orange letters reading “F/CTL ALTN LAW (PROT LOST)”. At least one pilot did notice this; the co-pilot who wasn’t pulling up the whole time said “alternate law, protections lost” out loud, as recorded on the CVR, when the message appeared.

[gnaffle]

I think he might have noticed, but not fully realized the implications of it. His behaviour following at least did not indicate that he was concerned about a stall, and there were no further mentions of this warning.

[toomuchtodo]

Would that not be a UX issue? Perhaps the warning needs to include the phrase "Failsafes deactivated" announced repeatedly.

[gnaffle]

Yep, I would say that, as far as I remember there were also several other warnings at the same time. There were some recommendations in the accident report regarding UX improvements.

I think there was a similar problems at Qantas Flight 32, where the crew had to spend a lot of time going through 54 error messages after an uncontained engine failure.