Originally Posted by
Ancient Mariner
All this grandstanding makes me wonder if some of you have been in an emergency, a real emergency?
I've been fortunate/unfortunate enough to have been in a few, albeit maritime, not aviation related.
Everytime I was surprised to see "highly trained professionals", and I mean highly trained, we had realistic training once a week for these eventualities, totally break down and be unable to function. I not talking 30 seconds, 90 seconds, but unable, period.
Aviation is of course a totally different ballgame.
Per
I agree with your observation. I think we all aspire to function well under severe pressure or danger. The truth is even we cannot predict how we will operate under intense pressure let alone how somebody else will perform. Training does help, provided it is sufficient to make the actions required second nature but still does not recreate the pressure of facing death. I have been in a number of high stress situations and in hindsight performed reasonably well in two but failed miserably in another resulting in the death of a friend. My father was an resistance fighter during WWII and was accustomed to life and death situations for over 4 years of his life continuously. I always admired his ability to function under the most intense danger and pressure... but there is no training that can replace experience. Many people luckily do not have the benefit of observing themselves in the most extreme of circumstances.
I too have witnessed well trained peoples minds become empty and acknowledge all the training in the world cannot predict a poor reaction to the ultimate stress. From my own experience I can say that in the two circumstances that I performed well, I immediately had a clear crystalized understanding of what was required. In the event that I did not perform well, I was unsure of the best course of action at the time. What I find difficult to read in this thread are people that have assumed what happened and assumed that it was immediately clear to the pilots what was required. Flying pitch and power is a little more stressful when you are a few feet AGL. I will reserve judgment on the pilots until further information is available and even then do not believe that Boeing should have ever placed them in that situation.