Good grief, 411, a sensible posting with no vitriol...
Rockhound: in the past decade, I do believe CX would have fired a Capt. for this much damage - especially if he was on their "hate" list, which they most definately had. Justifiably, CX are very proud of their widebody professionalism (although sometimes comments by senior managers used to make me wonder....!), and guard it aggressively as part of their good brand image.
Tony EM makes a very good point about knowing some rough performance numbers for your aircraft and wt. I often think some approx. numbers for a wt spread would make a good memory item. It's the same basic airmanship as knowing approximate EPR's for approach settings, etc - don't just rely on the autothrottle to take care of it for you.
About the FE thing...I remember an incident at CX where an L-1011 was mis-fuelled and the FE (who was a top-notch bloke) missed it on his uplift calculation. The #3 nearly flamed out in tank-to-eng mode with a stuck fuel indicator, and the wing was overstressed by massive imbalance.
So it just goes to show, s**t can strike anyone, anywhere, at any time in this business.
