A321 flight crew reported a pilot-induced aircraft upset occurred during departure climb. Flight crew recovered aircraft control and continued flight.
Synopsis
A321 flight crew reported a pilot-induced aircraft upset occurred during departure climb. Flight crew recovered aircraft control and continued flight.
Narrative
I was hand flying the ZZZZZ SID off of Rwy XXL. After rotation I turned off the fight director and auto thrust. I had thoroughly briefed this during preflight. The FO and I had flown together previously this month when I flew in the same manner and accomplished a similar briefing; discussing threat mitigation and expected FMAs (Flight Mode Annunciators). As we passed 2500; I called for flaps up" and began to lower the nose and reduce power to level off at 3000 and 250 knot. At the same time; ATC issued a turn to 330. As I began the turn; reduced pitch and power; the flaps were moved to the UP position. At this time; I experienced a temporary loss of situational awareness; overly fixating on my airspeed as the pitch fell below the horizon. The aircraft began to descend. The FO called "Upset". I accomplished the Upset procedure and then commanded the flight director and auto thrust "on" and selected Autopilot 1; resumed the climb and continued the departure IAW (In Accordance With) ATC instruction. The UPSET deviations were momentary and did not trigger an ATC query. The FO and I thoroughly debriefed the incident once above 10;000 feet and the flight continued uneventfully."
Second reporter narrative
On departure out of ZZZ; we were assigned the standard ZZZZZ departure from XXL. I have previously flown with this captain and in his brief for the departure he discussed to maintain his proficiency with hand flying his flight director along with the auto thrust will be turned off shortly after departure and the procedure would be hand flown. He briefed everything in incredible detail with steps of disarming and re arming automation and if anything were to happen or if I felt uncomfortable to re automate the aircraft and continue on the departure. The take off was normal and above 400 feet the auto thrust and flight directors were turned off. We entered IMC at 1300 feet and were told to contact departure. I contacted departure and was given a heading of 300 and no climb. I turned the heading bug to 330 and picked the flaps up per CA command. As I picked the flaps up I noticed the aircraft descending through 2800 and speeding up with no correction. I quickly shouted UPSET in which the CA followed the procedure to recover the aircraft. I re armed the the FD on the captain's side along with auto thrust and we continued the climb and heading with no query from ATC. Through 10k we debriefed what happened and what could've gone better; and how to prevent that from happening again. We continued the flight with no other events to ZZZ1 where we conducted an uneventful landing.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.