THE AF 447 flight consisted of a first officer in the captain's seat and a second officer in the right seat. When the auto pilot failed due to the blocked port, the second officer froze on the sidestick and actually pulled back on the controls. The side stick controllers do not move in unison and the other pilot had no idea this was happening. Basically, they were fighting over the controls. This is what caused the confusion and led to the stall and lack of recovery.

A key difference in US training and that which is going on elsewhere, is the building of experience not just time. Pilots need to build experience as pilot in command--the decison maker, while flying slower more forgiving aircraft and then advancing upward. A pilot who had that kind of experience probably would not have frozen on the controls. Airbus and now Boeing want to automate their aircraft as much as possible to sell to meet Asian demand--where pilots are going to be trained quickly and without much command experience.

Airlines want cheap pilots who do not need a lot of experience or training and can rely on the aircraft's automation to keep them safe. But that isn't working out quite that way. The Asiana 214 which crashed in San Francisco had a check airman in the cockpit and experienced captain with 10,000 hours flying, yet they were unable to safely land in perfect weather during daylight. IMO, going from a 300 hours in training straight into a jet airliner is the problem. The command decsion experience isn't there. So the commuter pilots who transition to long haul are probably better qualified than those who went straight into it. The idea of newbie with newbie would not usually happen, I would think.