No the autopilot, is what flys it from airport to airport with very little pilot input, they can turn that off and fly it manually.
This was a malfunctioning anti stall safely device that went wrong, autopilot was off.
It's a good idea, if not for a faulty sensor that was under reading the air speed.
Turv, man, I like you. But let's stop with the semantics here. A sensor malfunctions and the plane decides to do something based on it's programmed algorithms, that is an auto-pilot. It is controlling the craft without input from the pilots. This IS the definition of an auto-pilot system.
Stop with the anti-stall falderal. It does not MATTER what caused the plane to pitch down against the pilots' wishes. The thing pitched down, based on what it knew, and prevented the pilots from correcting. This is an auto-pilot system that went bad, bigly.
