Eaglefly,

You will find in one of the other threads an entire discussion of the role of the violation of sterile cockpit rules in the Buffalo mishap.

I was quite adamant in stating that the violation of sterile cockpit roles has never caused a crash that I know of. What has caused many crashes is a generic lack of SA, a lackadaisical attitude, etc.

What's the difference many ask? Well, if I was flying an ILS down to mins in icing conditions, was focusing 100% on the control of the aircraft, the performance of the aircraft, and the navigation of the aircraft - but was singing "Mary had a little lamb" to myself or telling a joke to my Capt - well, that would be violation. But, if I were on the same ILS but was half asleep and allowing myself to get 10 kts slow, etc - but being perfectly quiet except for checklist callouts - that would not. Which case would be more likely to result in a crash? It's the attitude and SA that matters, not the conversation. The attitude and SA leads to the conversation.

If you find that discussion, you will find many on this board that completely agreed with the media in that the discussion several minutes prior to the mishap was worthy of highlight. Although no procedures were violated (except for sterile cockpit) during the conversations, they were supposedly worth mentioning. It would seem that it's not just the media that takes these things out of context.