Excellent thread and very informative and useful discussion development. All agreed that the holes nearly lined up completely. I too am interested in the subsequent handling of the incident by TC. What happened to the pilots involved ? Also, why was the Loc overshot in the first place ? Loc armed ? App armed ? etc.
In perspective, might have been an isolated incident for TC. Big company and what have they done to safeguard a further lapse ?
Fully agree with all posters regarding the good ole days where we were trained to fly. Automation was introduced in stages and welcomed as an aid to off-load manual. But, if the autofunctions failed or complicated the issue, we just knocked it all out and handflew with absolutely no problems.
Differing management styles also have erased our handling skills. I can see the point. A bit. Discussion with a Chief Pilot led him to ask me to consider the fact that the company had invested very heavily in full automation in order to increase aircraft efficiency and, therefore, the philosophy was to encourage full use of that facility and to discourage handflying. I responded by asking him why then, did we have to demonstrate full handflying capability in the recurrent checks ? His response was that they allowed for degraded skills in the checks ! Not kidding. Good grief.
Same company, P2 handling, CAVOK, no wind, hardly any one else at the departure airfield. I asked him if he would like to handfly all the way to TOC for fun. He denied preferring to stick to company SOP. He later admitted that he doubted his ability to handfly to that level !
My submission is that we have allowed degradation in flying skills by sucking up to the Accountants. Twenty odd years later, here is the result. Near disasters all over the place in conditions that are hardly demanding.
JW411 : Well said. We Babyboomers might be scoffed at but we are around to tell the tale. I always announced the onset of non-normal check-list activity by a comforting, "I have the aeroplane, I have the radio". Trouble is, I think, Airbus and fly-by-wire technology is such that we never, really, have the aeroplane. It still has you ! Well, to a degree but the comfort level in automation remains high and attempts to resolve deteriorating situations through autopilot remains high for the new breed.
The TC Captain was hardly new but a Airbus Vet who referred to type. A trait that surely should have been looked for, even set-up for in his conversion to the Boeing. Mate of mine went the other way, Vet on Boeings and converted to Airbus. Every time he mentioned to the Instructors that "In the Boeing........." he was taken outside and roughed up.