Btw: Not sure.... who is the idiot pilot here.....
Thank you for posting that link.
I read the report and it doesn't appear there was any malfunction in the idle gates according to it. The report very clearly states that the pilot engaged the triggers in his reduction to flight idle, thus disabling the gate and putting the aircraft into ground idle. The report also stated that it this mistake was (essentially, I'm paraphrasing) caused by either panic or complacency. In my opinion any pilot that falls victim to either of those conditions is a fool, especially knowing through the mistakes of others that they are potentially deadly states of mind.
This crew took a bad event, severe turbulence, and created a catastrophic event through their own actions. A disturbing trend I've noticed in recent years are pilots in severe weather (usually turbulence) creating deadly or potentially deadly situations through careless actions or inability to manage the aircraft I'd be hard pressed to think of any time turbulence tore a plane apart, but I can name at least three instances in which a pilots reaction to said turbulence (or associated weather phenomena) did. I'm curious what has created this sudden shift in pilot mentality where now bumpy weather is something to fear?