Machinbird, an interesting theory (#529). Is there any science which support this, or with such science, anything which links it with the events of this accident.
I can relate to similar symptoms but in the sense of ‘automatic’ skillful behavior – activities without conscious awareness.
We conduct many tasks at the subconscious level, but not normally with the conscious mind being ‘unconscious’, i.e. asleep.
Distraction or lack of attention – wandering mind, or even complacency can contribute to these types of situation, but generally if a non-normal situation is encountered we expect people to ‘wake-up’ – become aware of the situation.
In flight operations, procedures and check-calls provide opportunity (even for subconscious behavior) to realize that the normal – ‘on the rails’ – type of operation is not progressing according to the ‘skilled’ plan; something jerks you back to reality.
In this accident, this type of input was either not present (poor SOPs, calls, etc) or not effective (FO did make some calls), the latter may represent a failure to hear, which is often associated with being maxed-out with some other task – attention deficiency.
If the Captain was asleep (unconscious) we might expect that crew calls or other actions would wake him, but if the conscious process was maxed out or ‘stalled’ by some other process (inappropriate task, task overload), then the apparent state of normality might remain.
Unfortunately we cannot tell in this accident, but perhaps this line of speculative thought will act as a reminder for the need for well-considered procedures (stabilized approach) and check points (approach gates), with crew intervention, as a possible defense against this type of behaviour.