I remember all of those mentioned. Starting, really, with Tenerife. I was about 14 at the time, and that was the first one that I read about in detail.
As an aviation enthusiast, as well as a professional in the field, I have read every single mishap report and investigation of every airliner crash since Tenerife.
There are a great number of lessons to be learned.
Of particular interest to me, are Air France 447, and Prime Air 3591. Both are the result of pilot error in otherwise sound aircraft. The instrumentation error in the case of Air France was minor, and the crash was the result of startle response. Amygdala Hijack. Prime Air was a perfectly good jet, flown into the ground by a pilot who startled when the TOGA switch was activated.
I’ve had a complete airspeed failure, worse than what AF 447 experienced. It went right to zero. At night. In IMC. I asked my RIO, “Hey, Ferris, what do you show for airspeed?” “Zero” he said. “That can’t be right” I said.
I kept the pitch and power the same as we talked about it. INS showed good ground speed. No buffet or indication of stall. We flew back into VMC, and slowly, the airspeed returned as the ice in the pitot-static probes melted.
Problem solved.
But for Air France and Prime Air - who had less of a malfunction than we did on that night - the pilot response was instinctive, panicked, and utterly disastrous.
When your amygdala senses an existential threat - and the adrenaline dump happens - you lose the ability for analysis and higher thinking, for at least 30 seconds. That response is what interests me as an instructor and evaluator (examiner). We train to reduce that startle response. Managing the emergency is more about thinking and analysis than stick and rudder.
