Can someone please list the occasions when passengers knew better how to deal with the problem than the crew paid to do so
Not examples of the passengers knowing better, but examples of how they may have saved the day but didn't, to the cost of many lives.
Aloha 243, Boeing 737, April 28 1988. The famous roof torn off incident. From the report.
A woman passenger in the process of boarding noticed a crack which appeared to run through a row of rivets just aft of the door. Believing the airline must know what it was doing and that she would only be humoured and regarded with disdain if she "made a fuss about it", she made no mention of it to the airline's ground staff or to the cabin crew.
Air Ontario F-28, March 10 1989. Crash on take off, contaminated wings (snow and ice), causing the death of 21 of 65 passengers and 3 of 4 crew members. From the report.
F/A felt concern immediately after the cabin door was closed and thought it would be de-iced. While walking through the cabin she overheard passengers expressing their concern. One passenger expressed his concern and asked her what the crew were going to do about it. On previous occasions she had gone to the flight deck with safety concerns, only to be told not to worry - even though the pilots conducted no checks to verify her concerns. Of two dead heading Captains on board the aircraft, one said, "professional courtesy precluded an off duty air line pilot from drawing the attention of the flight crew to a safety concern".
An F-86 crashed following take off when the pilot ejected after reporting smoke in the cockpit. The ejection was outside the seat parameters and he did not survive. The "smoke" was found to be condensation from the air conditioning. The pilot had just gained his "wings" and was in the early stages of his F-86 check out.