Do you think they don't have lapses of situational awareness too?
- from what we know so far, 447 does not represent a 'lapse of situational awareness' but a
complete failure of any awareness by the crew. It is difficult for me to contemplate, even if woken from a deep sleep, that I could ignore what we think the signs were. This is the reason so many of us are concerned at the quality or mental attitude of 'new' pilots.
I also become increasingly concerned for the prominence given to all the 'psychological' work on human factors in aviation. I am not denying that all this work is important and of great value, it is just that there is a constant stream of pdf's and other papers thrust down our throats at every opportunity, and I personally believe this is conditioning Mr/Mrs 'Average' pilot into thinking "It's not my problem, it is human factors/design/management/training/CRM - you name it - and instead of making sure they have, and exercise, the basic flying/logic skills to deal with a situation, they will be conditioned into a subconscious state where it is someone else's problem - eg focussing on calling the Captain back to the cockpit to the degredation of monitoring the flight path.
I don't have the answers, but someone needs to get them PDQ. Another sheaf of papers will not help a rookie crew in the ITCZ with IAS failure in the middle of the night. Basic skills will.