3holelover - indeed it was a perfect storm. It was as if the events were tailored to send that specific pilot to the briny deep.
My imagination stretches farther than yours, I guess. I remember me when I got out of college. I surprised many of my new peers with my understanding of electronics. I still needed some pointers. Then I learned why I surprised them. I saw some other raw graduates who'd never fallen in love with their chosen profession and learned, avidly, everything they could. They knew the bare minimum to hold their grades. They were good. But, faced with something outside their specific schooling left them in shock until somebody older poked them the right way. (I think I alienated a lot of fellows when I'd tinker in the corner and finish the project they were working on while I was also tinkering with the project I had at hand. Thankfully nobody ever asked me to build something into neat little boxes. We had some very good lab technicians for that, thank God! I'm not quite helpless when faced with tools and scratch building. (sigh))
He was schooled. He knew what he was doing. But the precise sequence of events threw his schooling right out the window and, it seems, "I want UP" screamed through his system as logic left.