With regard to post #1846 above, several people have already made the analogy between the A/T and cruise control on a car. On my car, if I manually override the cruise control (i.e. put my foot on the throttle) the cruise control disengages until I manually reengage it. Are there reasons why such an approach would not be desirable in an aircraft? It seems this would have prevented the scenario described above.
(Yes, obviously, I am not a pilot, but I think the question is marginally more interesting than reading the clash of egos amongst some of the other posters here...)
Last edited by PEHowland; 8th Mar 2009 at 12:19.