Old school controls vs 21st century "joystick"

[sublight]

Boeing contends a disaster like Air France flight 447 wouldn't have happened on a Boeing plane because the "classic" flight control interfaces communicate to everyone in the cockpit what inputs are being made and received.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9231855/Air-France-Flight-447-Damn-it-were-going-to-crash.html

 

[LowObservable]

It's the writer, rather than Boeing, tending towards that assertion:

"Indeed, it is hard to believe AF447 would have fallen from the sky if it had been a Boeing. Had a traditional yoke been installed on Flight AF447, Robert would surely have realised that his junior colleague had the lever pulled back and mostly kept it there."

In considering this argument, one should remember that FBW/sidestick Airbus aircraft have been in service for 24 years, which is half as long as the world airline fleet has been largely jet-powered; and while the 777 has an excellent safety record, there have over the years been plenty of loss-of-control/miscontrol accidents with non-FBW jets where the controls are physically linked.

 

[sublight]

It's the writer, rather than Boeing, tending towards that assertion:

"Indeed, it is hard to believe AF447 would have fallen from the sky if it had been a Boeing. Had a traditional yoke been installed on Flight AF447, Robert would surely have realised that his junior colleague had the lever pulled back and mostly kept it there."

In considering this argument, one should remember that FBW/sidestick Airbus aircraft have been in service for 24 years, which is half as long as the world airline fleet has been largely jet-powered; and while the 777 has an excellent safety record, there have over the years been plenty of loss-of-control/miscontrol accidents with non-FBW jets where the controls are physically linked.

So this "obstructed from opposing pilot view" side stick has been in use for 24 years??

 

[Sundog]

Also, as has been well covered in Aviation Week, one of the major problems leading to the crash is the recovery techniques currently taught to aircrews and how they determine proper recovery methods.

 

[DWG]

(Another late reply, but I think the points are worth making).
As a general comment I tend to treat anything aviation-related in the Telegraph with extreme caution, even more so than in the rest of the general press - I've seen stories that frankly bent the truth (I was working on the project they related to, so was in a position to know) to suit the Torygraph's politics. (Of course the Torygraph would never bend a story to cast aspersions on the French).
WRT Airbus design philosophy being responsible, the writers really don't know what they're talking about, because practically every significant aircraft since WWII has had some element of artificial feel in the controls, creating a disconnect between the pilot's hand on the joystick or yoke and what the control surfaces are actually doing. Everything they say about Airbus Flight Control Systems equally applies to the Boeing 777 and 787, other than that the Airbus has the non-moving sidestick rather than the yoke, and the yoke introduces vulnerabilities of its own which the sidestick doesn't have - such as snagging it with your arm when you get up to go to the loo....
The Airbus and Boeing flight control philosophies are subtly different, and in some extreme cases one will keep you safe while the other won't, but which is which will vary from incident to incident. For instance the Airbus FCS will actively prevent you from exerting control forces that will break the aircraft in most situations, the Boeing FCS will just make it more difficult. On rare occasions it might be better to break the aircraft (if say there was a hill in the way and you could minimise the impact, no matter you ripped the wings off doing it), but most of the times breaking the aircraft is a very bad idea. There's no way of knowing which risk you're going to encounter, so no way of knowing which design philosphy will keep you safest.
As for AF447, it was an extreme event, but IMO it's another example of an increasingly common phenomenon, pilots who don't understand how their aircraft reacts in unusual situations, which points at a flaw in training methods. The pilot's mantra is 'first fly the plane', but flying the plane means being aware of everything about the aircraft, and the stick and the control surfaces are only part of the control loop, the avionics are just as vital.