Who should contribute to a pprune thread?
So some of you do not like sugestions, opinions, rumors, and contributions from non- professionals. They ask for hard facts, and coming from 10'000 hours plus captains. They would rather wait indisturbed for the final accident report which contains the truth and nothing but the truth.
Now please rainboe, hetfield and boeingmel, do not re-load your guns. As one of those guys who do not get payed for flying (nobody would probably) and set out to the skies in jeans rather than smart uniforms and four thick stripes, I would just like to explain why „outsiders“ have a right to be here.
The contributions from the professionals are important, they provide excellent knowledge of procedures, aircraft and ATC systems, SOP's and you name it. But to guess what has gone wrong, you need people outside the „pro“ community. A friend of mine was a chief accident investigator for a European country, charged also to investigate some of the big bangs. He had no ATPL, but he flew everthing from gliders to choppers as instructor. His credentials were a methodical, unbiased approach, and a vast know-how in co-related fields like software, engineering and management. Not being part of the 'pro'-club was an asset to his investigations, not a deficiency. Sadly, he passed away far too early.
My point is that for a guess, you should never ask a pro, because he's not allowed to guess. No cockpit crew gets paid for guesses, they fly the aircraft as they were trained, based on procedures that provide a good safety margin as long as you stick to them. But then an accident „happens“. Excluding the rare occasions were an accident must be regarded as an unforeseeable act of fate (e.g. a volcanic eruption), accidents in the commercial aviation nowadays do not happen, they are made. Please do not confuse errors with blame, I hope nobody acts as a judge here.
If something has gone wrong where the causes are not immediatly and completely obvious, it is often very useful to „brainstorm“ the information with outsiders. They are not bothered by professional pride, and they may have intelligent opinions based on their own experiences. It does not matter if their input is sometimes complete rubbish, so is once in a while a contribution from a pro. I personally have learned to value brainstorming in many other professions like engineering and even more in management, why not in aviation?
This forum has a mixed audience. That's what makes it worthwhile. But we could do without the „bashers“, those that go ranting about cultural issues, aircraft makes and people having different background and different views.