Rottenray,
As a non-pro pilot and someone who has been critical of the two pilots as well as supportive of meaningful sanctions, I think many of your points are, well, Motherhood and Apple Pie. By which I mean - yes, we all agree with what you say in a sense - I'm quite sure the two pilots would agree vehemently as well. They probably love flying as much as the average pilot (just a guess but IMO there's no reason not to think so), but how many 1000's of hours will love persist when it comes to determining cockpit behavior in fighting off tedium and helping with ever-changing corporate systems like stupid scheduling stuff?
Have you been married for a while by any chance
[As the Judge declared, "strike that last remark from the record and put it out of your mind, jurors"] I'm sure you know why I ask.
Those pilots likely agree with all the earnest stuff about the solemn duty of the profession to passenger safety etc etc. It's more complicated than that, is what I'm trying to say (on behalf of the pros, many of whom I sense are biting lips). Again I'm only a lowly Part 91 piston person (who likes to mix with the pros a bit in the clag Lord help them ...) but this business has to be a bit of a balancing act on a long flight (or a shorter but very monotonous one) - bring on the budding CBs in the field of view .... You're monitoring the instruments and listening for the good word but you also have to keep your mind active in a small dark (at times) and all-too-familiar space. Otherwise you may not fall asleep but you might fall into a sort of stupor that is no bally good to anyone, including your trusting pax. Talking about the silly new scheduling system would have served nicely to keep them occupied and fully alert - wish I could hear
that conversation
. I want my pilot up there really THINKING, not necessarily about flying every blasted second (that's what computers and servo systems are for), and for sure
not someone slumped down in the chair dully staring at the screen for hours on end monitoring every 20 ft deviation .... not good. One pilot could even have struggled for a while with the annoying new scheduling system on the laptop while the other flew the plane and gave verbal encouragement to #1. Excellent scenario IMO but others here can judge better. Pity they both got too engrossed in it for so long, if that's what really happened.
I don't have an answer. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of stimulating, well-designed short-term diversions in the cockpit such as - yes - computer games, as suggested earlier. Sort of
hair of the dog that might bight you later if you get my meaning ...... Designed by safety-conscious pilots for safety-conscious pilots, with all the built in pop-ups, audio reminders, links-to-motherboard-data type of stuff that a clever techie can dream up.
You are preaching to the converted, is what I'm also trying to say. How to change the sermon a bit is the question. One thing I would NEVER do to these pilots is go on about stuff to them that they knew all too well already, long before this unfortunate business messed up their lives. Patronizing, to be blunt, and it wouldn't do anyone any good really. They screwed up, they will pay for it, but it doesn't
neceesarily make them anything like the sort of person you seem to be suggesting in your post - a person totally uncaring about the safety of his passengers, uncaring about his calling and, yes, unfit to fly. I refuse to believe that and I see no reason to on present evidence.
There but for the grace of *** go many, many excellent pilots (and other professionals, in their own way). It's a very unforgiving profession in more ways than one, yet isn't payed as it if were in many cases is it now? (but ignore that remark as well - it's for other and never-ending threads).