bubbers44, BOAC;
The point is, (as I know you know), that things happen in airplanes...to vast majority of veteran crews with tons of experience, talent and a professional work ethic second to none, and to the few, of all ages, who have no idea what they don't know about airplanes and aviation and no business being in an airplane with others on board yet are there by circumstance.
It is better to be aware that truly astonishing events and actions, though rare, are possible even with the former kinds of crews described above.
Reading widely the accident reports helps bring a keener awareness into the cockpit, as does regularly communicated results of an airline's
FOQA Program....heard it, seen it.
d105, thank you for taking my thought as intended - respectfully, as it was plain to see you were speaking from lots of command experience. A good site for such reports is
JACDEC, the
NTSB and the
Boeing Statistical Summary of Jet Aircraft Accidents 1959 - 2009 is a very good summary of this aspect of our work. I don't mean to overdo it, but it's just that there's a lot of good gen on the net.
PJ2