As per usual a load of PPrune drivel from armachair FSx'ers and grissled old ace's who think that everyone should have 20 million fast jet hours before being allowed near a passenger aircraft. BUT this accident raises 2 very very interesting questions in the phsycological area which interest me. I'm assuming these guys didn't deliberatly crash the aicraft, and all comments aside about what they should have done or should have been able to do, I want to know WHY they did what they did.
the guy flying had 10,000 hours, possibly all airbus (not verified, but that seems to be the general info floating around) so he had a huge amount of experience in an aircraft that kept speed with AT WITHOUT MOVING THE THRUST levers. We all suffer from habit reversion from time to time - I certainly do - I sometimes find myself holding hands with my oppo on the thrust reversers even 2 years after moving from an airline where the PF did the reversers to one where the PM does them. I KNOW the SOP in my airline, but that muscle memory seems to be hard wired - no harm no foul in this case, but why does the human brain do this and how can we combat it?
the TC in the other seat let someone fly a perfectly serviceable aircraft into the ground. This is a biggy - why? This question is often raised in training scenarios, who is really in 'charge' of the aircraft, especieally in environments, societies where seniority, social standing etc is important. This isn't the first time that 2 captains flying together have screwed up so it should be something that we can all learn from. And from a training point of view it's often the case that sitruations are allowed to progress beyond what would be normally comfortable to see what the trainee does. (i'm not a flight trainer, but I do teach / train in other areas) but this 'creeping' over the line makes it harder to draw bottom lines and react accordingly.