Originally Posted by
WillFlyForCheese
Perhaps "below average" pilots shouldn't be hauling live cargo? Or - perhaps a "below average" pilot can still competently fly a malfunctioning aircraft. I'm not willing to accept that the spectrum of commercial airline pilots include, as "below average," pilots who cannot do what many recognize here would have saved the day (and what the penultimate Lion Air crew was able to do). But - if that's where the industry is headed - perhaps the aircraft do need to be smarter and in more control . . . .
Everyone makes mistakes at some point or another, especially under stress. I personally try to keep myself at least 2 or preferably more mistakes (mine or others) away from a bad outcome, driving, woodworking or whatever.
The ET crew made one or more mistakes, not all of them significant, Sully succeeded despite neglecting to set transponder code.
One probably significant one was loss of awareness/control of speed, which contributed to inability to manually trim.
It is possible they decided stick shaker was spurious and since the speeds were not all that divergent (until later) they may have discounted uas warnings, hence attempt (and success for a while) to use autopilot which probably reinforced 'spurious' impression.
Had they been perfect they would have kept flaps down etc, although if they "perfectly" reacted to stall warning it might not have gone as well.
They did follow the runaway trim procedure but were apparently unable to manually trim then lost it when re-enabling electric trim.
Lack of manual trim and inability to disable only automatic trim (as on NG) was someone else's mistake, not theirs.
So how many mistakes are allowed? One hopes the number is greater than 1.