Originally Posted by
Joe le Taxi
and certainly in my early airlines, most captains were ex-services and FOs the same, or ex air taxi or basic TP.
That's not a recipe for victory. The crew who put AA 965 into the hills near Cali were ex USAF, Vietnam experienced Captain. AA1420 overrun in Little Rock was an ex USAF and USN crew. Could go on and on....
On the other hand from what I can see the crew who saved BA38 were all flying jet airliners straight after initial training. The Ural Air 178 crew were both ab initio, only had time in the 320 post basic training. The Captain of Ural 178 had only 3000 hours in total. Some would consider that far too little to sit in the right hand seat of a jet, let alone the left, yet he was there and did a fantastic job.
In fact it could be said as piloting has gone from the ex WW2 era where most airline pilots were ex military, to the current days where they are mostly the product of ab initio schemes the level of safety has improved.