'Airmanship' depends on definition; individual interpretations, goals, standards, etc. This involves judgement, yet judgement is embedded in airmanship, like expertise; what is expertise ... what is knowledge, good awareness, ... ad nauseam.
If we are to use whatever is available then this too depends on judgement - in context. The danger is that without central explanation individual choice will result in differing standards of effectiveness and the risk of creating further (unseen) problems. Explanation does not imply regulation, but at least an acknowledging the assumptions in the fundamental 'rules' of our industry; see comments on abnormal drills below.
Humans are very very poor monitors, that's why we choose to protect systems and automate cross monitoring as far as possible - a judgement in certification.
We assume that the crews will be able to apply good sense, but if rare and surprising situations result in startle, then the crew may not react as anticipated. Reduced cognitive resource limit the ability to choose to look at the standby instrument or make calls; unforeseen (subconscious) actions can dominate.
Our assumptions are flawed:- 'Startle'
http://www.icao.int/Meetings/LOCI/Pr...Strategies.pdf
'... an appraisal that a situation is threatening and is beyond the immediate control of the individual'
'... significant impairment in information processing for up to 30 seconds.
... tasks such as attention, perception, situational awareness, problem solving and decision making can be markedly impacted. Communication is often disorganised and incoherent for some time'.
Training to minimise the effects of startle is difficult, but with thought it should be possible to influence subconscious reactions, e.g. revise abnormal drills for a comparator alert to first use the standby instruments opposed to diagnose the abnormality: first fly the aircraft ... then manage the situation.
As much as the human may have 'failed' (been limited) then so too did the technical system. The technology did not meet the assumptions in the specification, yet there is no specification for the human; so why should we conclude 'human failure' - improvement required.
In reality both the human and technology were limited (the detector of faults and the fault detector), except that technology could be improved at least to the specified standard; not so the human.