If the beancounters are really as cynical as some posters in this thread have suggested - ie. "pilots are cheap, why spend money on EVAS etc." - then surely they (the beancounters) are missing the point when it comes to incidents like this? Yeah, it was "just" the two poor souls in the flight deck this time - but it could so easily have been the two pilots PLUS a large section of expensive Dubai real estate and at least a few dozen of its unsuspecting residents.
Surely any incident that renders an aircraft like the 744F essentially uncontrollable is not just an horrendous one for its crew, but for whoever happens to be occupying the space underneath it at the time? What if the next incident like this is shortly after take off from LHR or JFK and they're descending blind over densely packed suburbs?
I'd have thought any responsible operator would have to look at the bigger picture when it comes to incidents like this, and that any responsible solution to these problems should focus on maintaining the aircraft's ability to fly - and the crew's ability to fly it - for as long as possible after a fire is first detected. Crew bailing out James Bond style, even if it were practical for them, would have rather dire consequences for folks on the ground.
Last edited by Montgolfier; 5th Sep 2010 at 16:57.