There are not very many "new incidents". The very mature and complete SOP's and emergency procedures in todays transport catagory aircraft aircraft will cover pretty much everything likely to occur.
The fallacy in the argument that Captains should be expected to do what they think is best is the real world examples show most of the time when Captains disregarded the SOP the outcome was poor. Rejects after V1 that almost always end badly is a good example.
I teach the starting point for every emergency is the SOP. If actioning that doesn't work then you do what you have to do.
For normal Ops the operator specifies how to operate the aircraft. It is your duty as a professional airman to follow the SOP's . If you don't like how something is done you don't just ignore it and do what ever you want; you talk about it with the training department and then write a letter to the Chief Pilot. I have changed several SOP's at my current operation this way.
Unfortunately there is a small but significant number of Captains who have drunk the "hero pilot" cool aid and figure their superior skills allow them to ignore any SOPs that they don't feel like following. Most get away with it but a few leave a totally avoidable smoking hole
Sully had the 00.01 % emergency and he followed the USAIR SOP all the way to the time he stepped off the floating aircraft.
The same applies to the Qantas A 380 engine explosion. 5 guys in the cockpit worked together methodically followed the emergency SOPs to work through the ECAM faults. When the SOPs were not sufficient for the problem then and only then was a deviation from them made. There was no hero Captain throwing the book out the window, just a group of professionals working together and starting from a well understood and rigorously applied set of SOP's.......
Last edited by Big Pistons Forever; 21st June 2012 at 01:26.