Originally Posted by
Zorin_75
We can only hope that AF447 will be a wakeup call
Agreed completely.
From what I read on here, training (which is where I see one of the main deficiencies in the set of "holes" leading to the tragedy) has already been improved. If the A/P can disengage at FL350 and dump the plane into the hands of the flight crew, in Alt2 law, in some turbulance, at 2am, then they had better be trained and allowed to practice to cope with that event. It may not be a common event (and that may have driven budget decisions about training), but the criticality of hand-flying at that altitude (as explained by the ATPL pilots here) makes me think that the AF447 crew were put into a situation they were ill-prepared for. Of course there were other factors too.
I also think that luck (that word again!) played a part with AF447, in the sense of bad luck, with the timing of the Captain's departure to go on his break. If only that had been delayed by a few mins, he would have been on the flight deck when the problems started, and so the less experienced F/O wouldn't have been PF. Also the Captain would have been "caught-up" with events because he would have been there as the situation developed, so he wouldn't have been left with that "information void" which he had upon re-entering the flight deck that night etc. etc.
Anyway, just to summarise, I only posted earlier as the comparison seemed to be being made of: 32 other crews performance with UAS = good; AF447 crew performance with UAS = bad. IMHO, as explained in that 2nd Interim Report, the comparison is not so clear-cut.