This maybe trivial, concerning the Cali accident. Was there not a discovery that in the Honeywell FMC database there were actually TWO different fixes, both having the exact same idents as Tulua, which was near the Cali airport? Read this years ago in "Aviation Week" after I was in 757 training. One was near the airport and the other was off in a totally different direction, yet the FMC turned the airplane towards the mountains!
This is not to excuse the crew's rush to change runways in a plane which is very difficult to slow down, even with flaps 5 and speedbrakes extended, while descending (talk to crews who flew the old LAX Civet Arrival
), and allowing the plane to turn off into the darkness from a charted route. The 757's speedbrakes make almost no noise or vibration in the c@ckp1t/flightdeck, and are out so often that in a very high workload situation, you almost need to leave your hand on the lever in order not to forget.
But I never was/will be the type, so common on Pprune, who can always avoid making mistakes .
