Originally Posted by
SaltyDog
Agree it wasn't a split flap. Sorry for the poor posting, was responding (poorly when I reread) that the Captain and F/O may have thought it was a split flap based on the inputs and her unilaterally moving them back to previous position. The roll off after she put the handle too 15 may have triggered them to both think the roll off was a split flap, thus the focus on all the counteraileron (which is keeping with a split flap) rather than stall recovery. Then it was very late to realize it wasn't a split flap and in a deep stall. Have trained split flap to 121 crews in large transports, most crews react to the split flap with alot of aileron to counteract the rapid rolloff with nose up input to keep from rolling the aircraft. Often takes rudder input as well to maintain control until the flaps are repositioned to the previous setting. Sadly, many crews do not recover and crash. Reason for training on the near impossible condition.
Of course we can "Monday morning quarterback" this thing till we're blue in the face but I think the stick shaker activated so close to when she put the flaps down because the speed was 131KIAS. 3 seconds after selecting the flap to 15 the stick shaker activates. This may have caused them to believe that they had a split flap or tail stall. Apparently no one was monitoring the speed. The speed rapidly bled off after the gear was selected down. Speed went from 176K to 131K in 23 seconds. There was a point where the captain got the wings level and the speed started coming back up and if he would have reduced the AOA he might of salvaged the situation. The aircraft had rolled through 90 degrees when she put the flaps up. When I had originally read the CVR transcript I had thought it amazing that someone would select the flaps up when trying to recover from a stall. I thought that that may have contributed greatly to the accident but it appears to me that the airplane had already left controlled flight.
Not trying to be critical but trying to analyze the facts.