There seems to be quite a few "how could this type of thing ever happen in an RPT airline", written by Disgusted Of Microsoft. Let me paint a picture and see if we're al impervious:
767 coming down the slope at Flap 5, Vref+40 and the speed's beginning to go a bit high due lack of headwind (or whatever). Okay, let's select Flap 20. I know, all you perfectionists; don't use the flaps for drag
but I'm flying in the real world. Now, we all know how we are programmed to do certain things. The normal call is 'gear down, flap 20', so you can see where I'm going here. When not sitting in a comfortable armchair, where evrything is surrealy perfect, the mindest of a normal pilot would be that Flap 20 normally means he has has the gear down, so the bells are not ringing in his head telling him something's wrong. The other thing is the checklist; well that always comes with 'gear down, flap 20' doesn't it? So, once again, cranial alarm bells are silent.
It doesn't take a lot for something like this to happen because we do so many 'actions' so ofetn that we become programmed to know that when such-and-such has been done, then something else must have been done (one reason I always write silly notes-to-self when doing a Flap 15 take-off, for example).
Having got into an undesireable situation the crew did the correct thing, they went around. Yes, Mr Journalist, amazingly the aircraft did continue its descent for a short period. If you look up Mr Newton and 'Gravity' you'll find a few clues as to the reason.
Qantas have done the right thing, I believe, by suspending the pilots while they investigate the incident, This protects the pilots and the airline and allows far easier 'probing' by the relevant parties. The reasons for the ommission will be established and hopefully published in order to educate those who might do exactly the same one day. The pilots, IF REQUIRED, will undergo additional training to prevent it ever happening to them again and you can bet your arse it won't.
So, yes, we are all human and things like this will always happen because, as has already been pointed out, we are not 100% perfect. Those who think they are are in far a big fall but I'm yet to meet one of those pilots. It's what we do when we get into an imperfect situation that's important and these guys did the right thing.