It seems that in the very rare cases where a commercial plane goes down spectacularly, the ones that make it alive were flown by formerly non-commercial pilots (military or otherwise), who've flown planes that give them much less assistance and in much more stressful situations and so "doing the right thing" has almost become second nature to them.
The problem with people is that even if you know what you should be doing in theory, when you're put in an extremely stressful situation you're unlikely to be able to come up with a creative solution... and few situations are more stressful than the moment you realize that something completely unexpected is happening, at night, in a thunderstorm, over the ocean, with 200+ lives depending 100% on your actions.
It seems that in the very rare cases where a commercial plane goes down spectacularly, the ones that make it alive were flown by formerly non-commercial pilots (military or otherwise), who've flown planes that give them much less assistance and in much more stressful situations and so "doing the right thing" has almost become second nature to them.
The problem with people is that even if you know what you should be doing in theory, when you're put in an extremely stressful situation you're unlikely to be able to come up with a creative solution... and few situations are more stressful than the moment you realize that something completely unexpected is happening, at night, in a thunderstorm, over the ocean, with 200+ lives depending 100% on your actions.