Originally Posted by
jimrpa
Not really analogous. The mechanical failure left the pilots with no viable responses. The Airbus design flaw fed the flight management system inaccurate information which then "decided" that the pilot control inputs would exceed the performance parameters of the aircraft (or something like that) and wouldn't be allowed. Airbus has a couple of famous incidents where this has occurred. I'd prefer to fly on aircraft where the PIC inputs are accepted and executed by the aircraft for the time being.
This is the wrong thread for this, but AIUI this isn't really an accurate description of 447. The airplane entered Alternate Law because it determined it no longer had reliable airspeed data, and therefore the pilots should take full control of the plane. In the short period of time and confusion that followed, it seems likely the pilots made some bad calls. AIUI, at no time did the plane prevent the pilots from executing corrective actions.
There are several writeups. Here's one from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447