Originally Posted by
Purpleanga
Why is it so disgusting? That's what did cause the crash. Loss of situational awareness and not following procedures, as in getting out of an aerodynamic stall. All the sides are going to try to go by their interests but at the end of the day, you can't blame management for the CA not looking at his speed and forgetting how to get out of a very basic approach to landing stall. Stress, working conditions might have had a factor but an approach to a landing stall is basic student pilot pre solo 101 stuff. It's very unfortunate for the pax but some times there are freak accidents, I would definitely look into colgan though if this happens again.
The point being there is a threshold where a bad pilot in the cockpit is no longer the pilot's fault and becomes the airline's fault. That captain should've never been flying an airliner around. It is quite apparently that he lacked the skill and natural ability to do so safely. But, Colgan still put him there, can you blame him for taking that opportunity?
If Colgan put a monkey in the cockpit and the plane crashed, would anyone really be saying "This crash was due to the monkey's lack of ability to promptly and correctly respond to the stick shaker?" No. Its Colgan's fault for putting that monkey in the cockpit in the first place.
You take an airline that has the desire to do nothing more than fill seats at the least possible cost (quality of selection, depth of training, etc) and couple that with a system that, through inadequate regulations and oversight, leaves it almost entirely up to the airline to determine that the people in the seats are qualified.... and this is the situation you end up with.
People died because this crew screwed up, but this is really to the point where its a lot more about who is being put in the cockpit by these shady operators. Theres a big difference between this one and an otherwise competent qualified crew making one isolated fatal mistake and blaming it on pilot error.