Quarrels between Airsupport and Tony C aside,
Let me be the first to say I am not an aerodynamic expert although having flown swept wing aircraft to the shaker at high alt (above 35K) and to the pusher and beyond at low alt (10k to 17K), I’d like to think I have something to add. I can tell you these two scenarios are indeed different although they both require the crew to do the same thing: Lower the AOA.
Now having that said how does the crew accomplish this? Well depends are we at high alt or low alt.
One can always lower the nose or release back pressure to lower the AOA. This method will work at both high alt and low alt. Now, turbine powered aircraft are designed to have a lot of excess thrust in order to be able to fly at high alt and in the event of an engine failure, to be able to fly engine out at low alt. So at lower altitudes there is a lot of excess thrust meaning you could lower the AOA by adding power, and thus not sacrificing as much alt as one would by just lowering the nose.
At high alt turbine engines will not produce the same amount of power and engine acceleration times will be slower than at lower altitudes. So engine thrust alone is not enough to recover if you are far enough on the back side of the power curve you will need to sacrifice some alt.
Now as for these to cases:
IMO and just MO:
-The CRJ should have never been there and it is a shame we lost two pilots, an aircraft and has further tarnished the reputation of regional airlines. Is it a training problem? Not my job to decide I just can tell you what I know….. not much.
-The Q, I think (emphasis on the I) that the crew misdiagnosed the problem. I believe both or at least one of the crew thought they had a tail plane stall. Why do I think this?
The actions of the left seater, stick to the chest and hold it. The actions of the right seater, bring the flaps up, all the way up. To me it looks like they did the perfect tail plane stall recovery, only problem? You don’t get a shaker with a tail stall. Can I blame them? No, I wasn’t there I can’t say how I would react.
Just my 2 cents, might be wrong, if I am please post intelligently…