Originally Posted by the passenger
If pilots are such heroes and have no problems with "unusual situations"
That's not being said, but it can be argued that such situations are rigorously trained for.
why do they switch off the wrong engine (British Midland, 1989),
Because the cross-training provided from 737-300 to 737-400 at British Midland was not completely adequate (bleed air comes from the right engine on the 733, both engines on the 734 - pilots saw smoke in the cabin, deduced incorrectly it was the right engine that was malfunctioning...)
begin a takeoff without having the permission to do it (KLM, Tenerife, 1977)
Because of overly strict scheduling laws that sound good in theory, but often cause problems in practice
stall airplanes (Birgenair, 1996/ Northwest Orient, 1974/BEA, 1972),
Only one of these (the second) can be proven as pilot error - the first was a maintenance mistake, and the final one was due to incapacitation in the cockpit at a crucial stage of flight.
I like cautious pilots who would rather return to the depature airport than try to save their company some money!
Something tells me you're the kind of person who'd be the first to complain and demand compensation if you arrived at your destination 24+ hours late because of a minor fault with a quadruple-redundant system. As has been pointed out, most US carriers do the same route on 2 engines every day... I fail to see the excessive danger in doing it on 3.
J.