Thank you - I felt there was a difference betwen the management styles of the crew in the SWISSAIR 111 fire (
Transportation Safety Board of Canada - Media) compared to the Fed Ex Flight 1406 Fire ( National Transport Safety Board. In Flight fire/Emergency landing Federal Express Flight 1406. 1996. PB98-9104O3
NTSB/AAR-98/03 DCA96MA079. Downloaded from
http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/1998/AAR9803.pdf ).
In the former a perfect outcome was sought as fas as SOP's were concerned, however the checklist was so long ( over 200 items) 6 precious minutes were lost, despite crew being in full agreement about what they wanted to do. An opportunity to immediately descend and land was offered by ATc but refused, and perhaps an instant command decision to that effect was a less perfect but ultimately safer thing to do. In the Fed Ex flight 1406, the PIC decided quite quickly to get the aircraft on the ground no matter what, neglecting a few of the checklist items in the process, but all survived, though the hull burnt itself out soon after landing.
Another point is that the experience based "naturalistic" model of problem solving seems more suited to time critical tasks and to the stressed cockpit, to give a workable solution while CRM processes "management by committee" can be bought to bear later on if more perfection is required.
Well I quized 3 friends with miles of Major airline experience ( A330, A380 and 757) and they came up with some ideas for me!