The landscape of the cognitive brain can get real empty when startled. If the pathways to a solution are blocked by both lack of thinking, and no muscle memory, if only for a few seconds, the pilot can step into the unknown and unadvisable, never to regain a starting point.
Surprise should not be fatal in and of itself. If the brain is engaged in activity that is related to the context of the environment, he is in the game. This accident is full of overstimulation post event. Without the presence of mind and the muscle memory, bad things happened. The muscle memory this pilot exhibited started out arguably on the right track, but degraded evidently into some sort of rigid 'affirmation response'.
Last edited by Lyman; 25th July 2012 at 16:44.