From what I understand, the Pilots were the ones who induced the Alternate law and likely the out of control situation by STUPIDLY performing undocumented reset procedures while in the air. Had they not done that, they wouldn't have found themselves in that situation.
The report does not conclusively say whether undocumented procedures ("pull circuit breakers on both FACs") were performed. Some in the investigation team are denying that they did, see here for details:
http://www.gerryairways.com/index.ph...to-avalanches/
In any case, shouldn't the airplane remain flyable even after power to both computers had been cycled?
Airbus a/c are flyable at the most degraded law, which is direct law. It won't be pretty, or easy, but it's very doable with a little bit of aviating. They didn't even get to that point. Without getting too technical, Alternate law is a simple degradation of some of the protections unique to Airbus. Without those, it's like flying any other FBW aircraft. Any sane pilot would NEVER EVER perform a computer reset procedure that isn't sanctioned for airborne operations. The fact that the Captain saw a mechanic perform a reset procedure on the ground, did not give HIM license to perform the same, while in the air.
All airplanes have problems. Please don't try to create unnecessary fear of Airbus products. AirAsia, like Air France were unnecessary accidents caused much in part by pilot error.
You are misreading me. Airbus is not the target of this thread, training is. I am concerned about the rapid change of technology and how pilot training responds to it. As an engineer I am concerned about what looks like glaring weaknesses in the way modern Fly-by-Wire automation interacts with pilots, both Boeing and Airbus. (See Asiana 214 "FLCH trap" for a Boeing automation situation.) As a passenger I am concerned about hours and hours of over water in turbulent winter weather and how the man/machine system is trained to react to aprupt failures, often occuring at night and near max cruise alt. As an investor in HA stock I want to be assured that every precaution is being taken such that HA crew are specifically trained for high altitude upsets with associated startle factor, unusual G factors, and loss of situational awareness. Ideally, I want my pilots to be able to troubleshoot computer problems without causing hull loss. (And associated impact to the HA stock and my retirement portfolio.) The pilots here were bombarded with the same error message that came at them with rapidly increasing frequency... it would take a lot of system knowledge on their part to conclusively decide "these ECAM messages can safely be ignored", but "this message" requires urgent action of some kind, no?