I'm sorry, gentlemen.
I'm late to this conversation, but after running through this thread, I went back and read the preliminary accident report.
After all the back-and-forth over basic airmanship and appropriate levels of automation, I came back to the data point in the report that says that:
Between the initiation of a go-around/"missed approach" it was FIFTEEN SECONDS before power was applied!!!
Did I miss something?!?!
I'm speechless, frankly. I may fly a piddling regional turboprop w/ 10,000hp and only 76 pax, but I still FLY IT!
I understand that EK proceedures are automation heavy, but really?!?!
What kind of atrophy developed for the PIC to forget basic pitch/power/thrust-required relationships?
When I first started down this (cursed) career path, my mentor mentioned something he had an issue with:
At TWA, they were very focused on crew using the highest level of automation to gain maximum fuel savings. Spike observed that those crewmembers following the company dictates most closely were the ones most likely to bust their proficiency checks. (He hand-flew as much as he could.)
It's terribly unfortunate that EK follows the same mindset.
I just finished my annual check this evening, and both of my instructors over the last two days thanked us for making their lives so easy.
My normal SOP is to hand-fly to level-off, and below 10,000'. (We have no autothrottles, we have no restrictions). We do the entire US west coast, so that includes SFO, LAX, SEA and YVR. I will revert to automation if conditions demand, (temporarily).
Yes, it can be challenging, and I encourage my FO's to do the same thing, to gain experience and self-confidence. I realize that heavies only flying a few legs a month is different, (observed that in the USAF, (ick!)), but we're paid for our bad days, not our good ones. (As a previous poster eloquently observed).
I'm sure that the crew involved were professionals, but dammit,(!), we're also supposed to be "pilots", at some basic, fundamental level. It seems like they lost that.
Let the arrows fly.
Essentially, I'm with Alderdriver on this.