I believe that any pilot incapable of safely and confidently handflying a commercial jet under extreme and challenging circumstances (USAIR 1549) should not be in command of said aircraft.
SLF, this is just blather without meaning. Your initial point was about aircraft handling and instrument flying procedures but in your next breath you are suggesting USAir 1549 as an example of the level challenge that any pilot should be fit for without recognizing that the challenge of that situation had nothing to do with instrument flying skills, little to do with actual aircraft handling skill and a dead nuts zero to do with automation. The challenge there was in decision making. That's a talent that's entirely independent of equipment, though you can be sure that when those rare moments arise any pilot with brains is going be thankful for whatever the airplane can do to help him assess the situation and find the decision with greatest possibility of a safe outcome (which like for 1549 is not necessarily a certainty - you can be sure that at 200' Sully was wondering "What comes next?")
The swampland has already been purchased by all of those who mistakenly believe a complex and unforgiving system can be engineered to the lowest common denominator.
Sadly the bill is going to continue to be paid by those unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time for a decade or more to come. The 1st time this argument ever occurred was in 1959 at the beginning of project Mercury.
More blather. What are you complaining about ... that the manufacturers are mistaken in trying to improve its product to make them easier and safer to use, or that the airlines have dropped their standards so much that the "lowest common denominator" who are now flying aircraft do so incompetently, and yet also with fewer accidents than their predecessors?
We are repeatedly seeing pilots apparently incapable of basic unusual attitude recovery or basic proficiency in cockpit scan and basic IFR procedures...just looking here at this board right now not one of the three current tragedies can have happened (based on what we currently know) with the combination of proper scan and procedures...yet all of you are ignoring the basic fact that all to often the PF isn't even the PM and the other guy in the pointy end might as well be in the back with me...
Are we now? Guess you opted for the incompetent pilot explanation.
Actually, based on what we know so far about the three current tragedies (Polish Air force, Afriqiyah & Air India Express) there is nothing to suggest that a lack of proficiency with "basic unusual attitude recovery or basic proficiency in cockpit scan and basic IFR procedures" had anything to do with any of them.
Information available so far suggests that the PAF TU-154M commander knew very well that he was descending below the minimums for the approach he was conducting. If true that would be an error in decision making that no amount of handling or IFR procedures proficiency could prevent.
Likewise, the Air India Express accident is the result of a runway over-run, the common causes for which are excessive altitude at the threshold or excessive speed at touchdown resulting a long landing, or a degradation in runway or aircraft conditions impeding normal braking ability. The facts to support which it is in this case aren't in, but none of the alternatives involves a failure in proficiency resulting from an over reliance on automation or instrument flying skill. When the facts are known, however, the likliehood is that we will be looking again at a decision making error as opposed to a handling error.
And for the accident that this thread is about, up to this point there has not been a single shred of evidence that points to either automation itself, or piloting skills that have been atrophied by a reliance on automation as a causal factor. So far we know precious little, but what little we do know (allowing that Sitting Bull's info is accurate) suggests that the aircraft was under control until some point just after it initiated a go-around and that it climbed then reversed and descended very quickly. Why is not known, but the fact that the aircraft was wings level is telling. Unintentional losses of control resulting from poor instrument scan almost always result in a departure first in roll followed by pitch, which if it had happened here would have resulted in the aircraft impacting in a banked attitude, not straight ahead nose first as observed by Alitalia.
Pending other evidence being adduced, I'd suggest that an explanation fitting these few facts is a somatogravic illusion, the response to which may have been sufficiently abrupt to place the aircraft into an unrecoverable attitude even if a recovery was attempted. If it was this, there again neither automation nor automation dependency will have played a part. The result would be the same regardless of the size of the dials (they don't get much better than the A330's anyhow) or the qualities of the autopilot.
I suppose you could argue that succumbing to a somatogravic illusion reflects a lack of instrument flying proficiency, but that's a bit facile as it doesn't consider the difficulty of replicating such conditions in a training or line environment, the fact that all the hand flown approaches in the world won't provide you with the same experience if they result (as 99% do) in a landing, or the fact that in the right conditions the illusion can be very, very powerful indeed.
In this last quality it might be comparable to the illusion that reading enough of what's posted on PPRuNe can make some who describe themselves as SLF sitting in the back believe that they are qualified to make such sweeping statements as "We are repeatedly seeing pilots apparently incapable of basic unusual attitude recovery or basic proficiency in cockpit scan and basic IFR procedures."
Truly amazing.
Now can we start sticking to facts known or genuinely relevant operating experience as the basis for future conjecture?
ELAC