Originally Posted by
737 Driver
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Yes, I’ve seen the video, and yes I agree that it appears the Captain had achieved cognitive overload. Where I differ is that I feel the circumstances were not so extreme that cognitive overload would have been a reasonable expectation of a 737 type-rated Captain.
I used to do basic flight instruction, and I’ve seen many types of students. I would often tell them that flying an aircraft on a nice day really wasn’t that difficult once you had a little time under your belt, not too unlike learning to drive an automobile. The huge difference between a car and a plane, of course, is that you just can’t pull an aircraft over on the shoulder when things go wrong. You have to take whatever comes, work with whatever you have, and do your damnedest to get the aircraft safely back on the ground. I would tell my students that if they could not deal with that reality, then they should not become a pilot.
As professional pilots, we ought to meet an even much higher standard. When things started to go wrong, at least one of these pilots needed to look past the noise, place their hands firmly on the yoke and throttles, set the proper attitude and power settings, keep the aircraft in trim, and stay away from the rocks. That was all that was required. Everything else could have waited. The plane wasn’t on fire, the wing didn’t fall off, there were no bombs on board. This plane was flyable.
Yes, Boeing fracked up. Yes, the FAA and the airlines were culpable of going along with the fiction that the MAX wasn’t really that much different from the NG. But you know what? On any given day someone else could screw up and give us an aircraft that will malfunction in a unique and potentially dangerous way. And as always, the pilots are the last line of defense. We need to be mentally prepared for that reality or find another line of work.
I couldn`t disagree more. To fly the modern airliners you fly the automatics. If for whatever reason you cannot do that then its very much up to the avionics to do whatever they have been setup to do. These guys did not have a cats in hell chance of persuading the automatics to allow them to interfere. They simply lost the very short argument with the machine. What sort of last line of defense is that, is it a bit like the Maginot Line, invincible until proven otherwise and how many times does it need to be demonstrated before someone realises it aint working. Give me human error any day, I can understand that, computers, electronics and all that wizardry that goes with them, let the kids addicted to them play with it all, that would be a whole load safer.