but lets get honest here...
(and I know A LOT of flyboys are going te get ticked of by this) lets look at the facts present on the flightdeck..
How many aviators were present? captain, training captain, training captain in training, a flight officer etc? If they couldn't have held it together with this much brain power and hands/ears/eyes on deck well shuck's, really time to eliminate all pilots, give raises to the cabin crews and go center in command from gate to gate.
A good job, and some coool heads up there (I think, can't here the voice recorder). But another honest thing here; the real "iron knuckles" pilots that considered flying as hard work and not as a hobby are by now going for full retirement, leaving the gross of pilots/my collegues left who are in it for the money and the uniform!
It's a catch 22, I knows. A pilot doesn't earn anything anymore unless he has to take command of an abnormal situation. But as the autopilot can handle with more consistency and often much better the normal flight procedures, pilots are at a disadvantage here already with the management breathing in their neck with acars reports and what have you not. When you train you cost money, and then putting extra training in for the "special occasions" (AF447!) airliners just as rather skip those and put them on the flight deck saving simulator time, hotels,replacement flight crews, training captains, pocket money, meals etc. Aircraft are designd these days to fly so "sharply" saving gas, wear and tear etc. that a normal pilot can hardly keep up anymore and he needs a physics degree with IT on top of that to keep up, let's just round it off to the titel of an aeronautical engineer? But what have we/I besides me more often then not: a young man(woman) barely finished high school who's mom or dad upfronted the money because he/she always wanted to fly and they see/saw it as a good return investment. And the uniform does look sharp doesn't it?
I think we need to take a good look at where aviation is going, and most importantly the knowledge, wisdom and real flying skills we are about to loose with the last generation of real pilots that are going for retirement right now! When I don't fly I just don't feel comfortable with what I see going upfront, both of them sometimes not older then 30, and the performances I am then subjected to in "flight"
And at last, spare me the details of their dinner ball and smug faces, this isn't present at any other "mishap" that happens when something goes wrong in aviation land, and personely if they consider this a feat with all surrounding circumstances present it is a sorry day for all of us because they need all this just to bring things these days to a good ending?!
