AFAIK there is such a switch: there are switches to disconnect the primary computers on the overhead panel. If those are disconnected, presumably the aeroplane

AFAIK there is such a switch: there are switches to disconnect the primary computers on the overhead panel. If those are disconnected, presumably the aeroplane reverts to direct law and flight envelope protections become inoperative. I might be mistaken though; I'm no pilot and you seem more knowledgable. The article mentions they were able to regain control of the plane by leaving one of the primary computers disabled. (The end of the article itself has a quote from Airbus suggesting there's always supposed to be a way to get full control; presumably this is what they're referring to.) I was surprised that they left the other computers enabled, especially given that the article suggests they were worried whether it would happen again; to me, the obvious thing would be to do would be to disable all primary computers and use direct law. Malfunction of the flight envelope protections seemed the obvious culprit from the moment it was mentioned the sticks were ignoring commands, short of a mechanical failure in the control surfaces themselves. Certainly AF447 has demonstrated that Airbus aircraft are very poorly designed from a user interface perspective. The anecdotes you have about people working at Airbus sound highly interesting and would be worthy of blog posts in themselves. Would your friend ever consider writing about these concerns (anonymously even)? Also, was an accident report ever filed for that holding pattern incident? Can I read about it?