All pitot heaters were on, but AirBus was in the process of replacing
them with a newer design that did not ice up as easily. Pitot icing
is a know problem on that design under icing conditions, and they are
blue from running very hot, just like when tempering steel.
The suppositions is that they encountered large amounts of
supercooled water mist that overwhelmed the heaters ability to keep
the pitots open. Supercooled water mist at -60C is a scary idea.
Personally, I question the design philosophy here -- if the plane
cannot be flown without accurate air speed signal, you'd damned well
better insure that you NEVER lose that data stream.....
Peter
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