Originally Posted by
Tfor2
The real question here is that the pilot had altitude, speed, wind, pressure, distance to r/w and no power, and lacked the necessary skills to fly the aircraft until a safe landing. Coulda and shoulda made it. Sorry if this sounds harsh.
Disagree. This was no "Sully" situation like VMC in daylight.
Failing instruments, dark and in IMC, lack of exact position knowledge, high elev airport with even higher surroundings, very likely lack of any crew management with dreadful authority gradients, the anxiety once they realized they had made a terrible mistake, the list of those items goes on and on.
Even with 23500 hours I would never say I could have saved the day from there on. Yes, in hindsight and from the couch it can be done, as sim reruns with a pre-warned crew will prove in the future.
The story evolves as one big scam with more than only the crew involved.
For me the most interesting part stops at the flame-out. Their fate was signed at that moment for 99,9%, it would require an expert and trained crew, or a fuel tank of luck to get more or less alive out of it.
How in the world they got themselves in that situation is the main question, not the fatal emergency descent/landing.