Originally Posted by
Nordhavn
It would be strange for a 20000 hour pilot to make this kind of error. Granted, he had 500 or so hours on the tripple but this is a VERY experienced aviator. Maybe it is just as simple as you state but some of us don't see a man with this much stick time dropping the nose @30 degrees in a matter of seconds for a non alert configuration snafu.
UAL 173 CA had well over 20K hours of flight time & an overall very experienced crew. Ran a perfectly good plane completely out of gas & into the dirt fiddling around with a gear light. It’s unsettling to think an experienced aviator can be that susceptible to simple risks like distraction & fixation but here’s the important part- we
ALL are.
We have a lot of systems & practices in place to minimize these risks (GPWS to the rescue on this one) sometimes to the point of complacency- but don’t ever let yourself believe you or the guy sitting next to you is too experienced to make a devastating mistake.