Intl. overseas flight. He went back to sleep in the qtrs, so he’d be pilot on landing in France. Routine. What’s not routine is why did the computer take over, and why can’t they override it. Either way, if the airspeed wasn’t right, they couldn’t very well fix it, and the computer uh, would insist it was right.
I know it's "routine." But given how quickly things went to hell after he stepped out, it's difficult to believe that there weren't clues about upcoming rough weather that he either missed or ignored.
And I recall at the time that there were stories about the weather along their flight path (which, IIRC, was a deviation from the normal route).
Accidents like this rarely happen for just one reason -- in my world (satellites, not airplanes) there's typically a chain of events that eventually culminates in the so-called "root cause." And thus it seems to be in this case: my recollections of the early stories are that the pilot knowingly took a risk with his flight plan due to schedule/fuel loading issues. So they flew through the weather instead of around it.