Originally Posted by
Uplinker
@ punkalouver; exactly. Of course the main approach briefing should be completed before TOD. Not doing so was their first hole in the cheese.
Not monitoring the aircraft or the instruments was their second.
Agreed with the above. But. There will always be the potential to be squeezed on time for the briefing because some unforeseen thing came up to be dealt with (or a bunch of small ones) before TOD.
And there will will always be the potential to have a lapse in monitoring, and/or some cascading mode confusion, where when you finally "reconnect" with the airplane, the speed (or some other parameter) is not at a good spot. We can (and should) be as diligent as possible with the time management, and with monitoring, and with mode awareness, but none of this makes for a surefire catch-all trap for all situations that may be encountered.
There must still be the outermost layer to trap the bad situations that leak through: the comfort and ability to fly the airplane, that allows someone to calmly lower the nose a few degrees (to the 2000 feet lower altitude they were cleared to) without panicking and shoving the yoke and having a PIO that injures flight attendants. And there is only one way to ensure this comfort and ability as a baseline state.