[steve86]

You know with all the confusion about climbing or descending — a simple altitude-indicating GPS would clarify that, as well as give horizontal speed and vertical speed with a simple calculation. No, I’m not saying Airbus pilots should carry a Garmin but then again?

[expatpat]

They have GPS navigation. The confusion was not re climbing or descending, they knew they were descending. The confusion was over the airspeed. Were they descending because the nose was down (and the speed thence rising), or were they descending because they were in a stall situation (low speed)?

The flight control computer thought they were stalling, but that was because the airspeed data was erroneous (they might have been stalling, as it thought, or they might have been diving, but how can you tell without some kind of speed information - no noise from the wires you'd hear in a biplane!)