SADLY, when a plane crashes...everyone blames the pilot...except the Unions representing them.
why?
The world is an adverserial (sp) place. If the unions came out and said: the pilots crashed and it was there fault, no one would bother finding the truth.
I really think the pilots screwed up on this one. I don't think the copilot is the fault of the Airbus crash near New York.
I've seen awful pilots hired at AA. I've seen great pilots get turned down there. I know at least one pilot who lied about his flying time get hired at AA. (he logged PIC time on a plane he as acting as copilot on...that didn't even require a copilot)
So, let's find the truth...let's also acknowledge that the way we do things isn't that great.
And let's examine the difficulty in selecting reverse thrust on the 737...could this be part of the problem?