Originally Posted by
PerPurumTonantes
[...]
Every time you say 'just fly the plane' or 'basic airmanship' or 'get another career' you're completely ignoring human factors. This is as dangerous as not knowing how to fly the aircraft. And this is why you're getting such a deservedly robust response from others on here.
Originally Posted by
737 Driver
Not ignoring the human element at all.
[...]
With respect, I think there may be a breakdown in communication here that may be in large part responsible for the ongoing disagreement. When people say "human factors", they don't mean "the human element", they mean Human Factors*, i.e., the study of how the human mind and body interacts with designed systems.
The human mind does not, ironically, work in the ways most people think it does - it has well-documented limitations and sources of error plumbed into its design. A human factors expert can I believe pretty trivially design a scenario where most (if not all) humans will consistently fail to correctly solve even relatively trivial problems, regardless of their competence under normal conditions.
Thus, when asking "why didn't they just fly the plane?", one possible answer is undoubtedly some variant on "they were incompetent". But another possible answer is "they were put into a scenario in which any human being would consistently fail to solve the problem, regardless of competence". Probably the truth is somewhere between those two points.
*See Wikipedia article "Human factors and ergonomics"