Originally Posted by
guadaMB
There's something that puzzles me.
All over the Planet Earth it's being mentioned Mrs. Tammie Jo Shults as "the hero pilot, bla, bla,bla".
But listening to the radio exchange (brief and complete ones) between ATCs, TWR & AC, there's one thing very clear: THE PIC DURING ALL THE DESCENT WAS F.O. Mr. Darren Ellisor.
Mrs. Shults was in charge of radio and -surely- checklists while Mr. Ellisor was PIC descending and later aligning for a visual long final.
I've got not clear if Mr. Ellisor was PIC at the moment of the engine failure.
You don’t know the difference between the PIC and the PF?
Only one PIC in the cockpit. Who is PF and PM may change several times during a flight.
I have never had an emergency like this, but in the simulator I will give control to my Effoh when there is a problem. Managing and flying at the same time is a bad combination.
I take back control for the landing. Only myself to blame if something goes wrong at that stage.
FL5 landing is not dictated by any non normal checklist. I say it was a good call. You look out and see damage to the leading edge. You want to slow down as much as possible, but are unsure if you can get control problems when you extend your leading edges. You try FL 5 and LE in mid position. It works.
You land with this configuration. I don’t know the runway length but a -700 is not that hard to stop on a normal length runway even in a flapless configuration.
This emergency involved multiple priority checklists, non normal configuration, compromises, etc.
You can all keep digging for mistakes and look for ways to criticise this crew, but they did a great job.