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Isn't the airport in Dubai barely above sea level anyways? I mean, if the difference between ground level and sea level is less than a hundred feet, then it seems like it wouldn't account for a plane thinking it was at 4,000 feet when it was really at about 200.

Pilot here. This is completely wrong, nobody ever gives altitude instructions above ground level. That doesn't exist in ATC terms.

Oh no. So, the computer was actually trying to keep the plane pitched down to avoid ascending naturally and keep the altitude stable. This is really, really bad.

Well, the autopilot was disabled, and the flight director (which at a 1 sentence level is a visual indication of what the autopilot would do) was trying to keep the plane level at the configured altitude

The flight director did the right thing — displayed how it would manage level flight

The pilot did the wrong thing - copied the misconfigured flight director instead of flying the plane