[mpyne]

> That was one of the worst crashes in history and there was never even a problem with the plane.

There were many problems with the plane, including the physical one of the pitot tubes freezing up (despite heating elements installed to prevent that), and the software and design problems relating to silent disengagement of parts of the auto-pilot, silent transfer to different flight modalities by the auto-pilot, and poor affordances in the physical user interface itself.

Certainly the subsequent pilot error did not help, as the flight would have been recoverable if proper action had been taken, but it wasn't just the pilots either.

Either way if you think some random shore sider would have been able to identify the exact pilot fault and clue them in within time parameters even with the inherent latency of satellite comms you more faith than I do.

[ekianjo]

> There were many problems with the plane, including the physical one of the pitot tubes freezing up

Not many, a single problem actually. Plus, the plane was not crashing after the issue occurred and the autopilot was off. The crew misinterpreted the signals and did not pay attention the Stall alarms repeatedly. The plane was flying fine even without the autopilot, it's a case where the crew actually crashed the plane by themselves.