PJ2
very good post and add two small snippets
Swissair had a cockpit fire out of MUN? a few years before SR111...they did a smart 180 and landed "blind" downwind having successfully sorted the problem out...which was incredibly obscure...short cct in the emergency power switch in the overhead panel...the skipper (a mate) walked around for the next couple of weeks wearing a bandage from the burn.
Whilst SR111 crew were "knocked" by other pilot groups having flown for BEA/BA(old BOAC) and SR I can honestly say the level of training and professionalism was way above my old employers. I flew 100 sectors on the DC9 with another copilot during my line training..far more than the combined total of my first two aircraft.
They also paid for their expertise.
Attended a presentation this week and over dinner was seated opposite a guy heavily involved in training ab initio pilots...relevant to the thread his first "flippant" comment was along the lines of "shag Fest" (447) (the crew were tired before they commenced their duty as highlighted on french TV).
His next peach was when he was CFI of a training organisation for a flag carrier a group of management and lawyers descended upon him and made huge cuts to the training program "because the authority doesn't require these subjects testing"..which he was forced to go along with;
and that FR reject over 50% of their applicants because their training hasn't been up to scratch.
An industry being forced to cut costs whilst the aviation authorities do nothing about training standards.