Kind of like how I’ve survived 10 ‘destructions’ of our country so far and will surely survive another one this October, the number of times I’ve heard of pilots who shouldn’t fly and been told so myself are almost beyond hyperbole.There but for the grace of god go I.
It takes a lot to screw up in an airplane. I’ve never been able to fully correlate previous incompetence with a disastrous result nor have I seen previous demonstrations of full competence deter a momentary lapse or bad luck which resulted in a crash due to pilot error.
There’s always two sides to a story, and nearly as often as I’ve seen someone bumbling and feeling their way through flying I’ve also seen overbearing captains and management expecting cookie cutter SOPs, micromanaging, and otherwise not letting situations develop that require deliberate action by the other pilot which may come at a point well after yours—but still not jeopardize safety.
Line indoc doesn’t mean training ends. It’s only begun. I taught my training captains things they never knew. The important thing is to foster an atmosphere where input is not only encouraged but expected, but all too many times the FO is just along for the ride and can’t make decisions because they were either deliberately or inadvertently excluded from them.