Originally Posted by
70 Mustang
“Old school”??? and “very” on top of that…
what I think he meant was, taking the final decision. That’s what it boils down to when things start going south.
Things don't always start going south. On the contrary, in 99% of the cases the decision to be taken is one between different opinions and in many cases there is never a black and white truth, there is ideology and a zone of comfort. And from a point of view of "safety" and "not losing the other side", sometimes the commander might be better of leaving the decision with the weakest from a crew point of view and going along with that point of view, yet taking responsibility for it as a single person.
I react like this because in those 99% of the cases, if pilots lean so heavily on the fact they have to take the final decision as a commander, many times they think these are good/bad decisions, right/wrong, which in reality are not. They are just ego's fooling themselves thinking they know the truth. But it is not truth, it is their zone of comfort and leaving the others hanging dry. And THAT, is very old school. Ask KLM, they had a famous case in Tenerife. It is also very apparent in cultures that thrive on authority levels like that, plenty of cases to be found.