I guess that is what you could call the curse of the famous downed pilot. Many pilots, especially military-types, who became famous because of crashes became heroes in the public's eye yet were criticized by their peers--from Scott O'Grady to Mike Durant (criticized by COL David Hackworth) to David Williams in OIF. Yes, they were only well known because they were shot down. And then the Monday morning quarterbacks come out of the woodwork--well why was he flying there, why couldn't he limp it back to base, why did they land? And then comes the "well I would've done this if I was in that situation."
To those hindsight pilots who analyze a situation from the safety of their lounge chairs and are critical of the pilots I say "shut the F up already." I don't care what you "would've done" because for all we know you would've shat your pants and watched yourself die while you were locked-up on the controls waiting for the circuit breaker on your brain to be reset. Learn from their mistakes and try to not let history repeat itself in your case.
Most of the those critical pilots are simply jealous of the attention and wish that they could write a book and be in the spotlight. Personally, I'd rather be anonymous and never crash.
Your points are well taken. But I have seen pilots crucified in the media when they never deserved it, probably equally as much as I have seen pilots praised in the media when they in fact really had really dicked it up. And everything in between, for that matter. (I've got some stories.)
Pilots unfortunately are quick to do their own accident investigations and armchair quarterbacking. It happens, but should always be private and constrained.
Having said all that, the pilots I refer to have many thousands of hours in the A-320, some are check airmen, and they have impeccable credentials. While I suspect jealousy may be a factor, as is current intra-airline contentious politics, these are experienced and expert pilots who know the aircraft, the systems, the checklists and emergency procedures. And they raise (privately) some very important and intelligent questions regarding this mishap. I won't repeat their speculation here. But the very belated NTSB final report which should have been cut and dried and quick, is now long after Colgan of the approximately the same timeframe. It might be, according to them, very stunning. We can only wait to know for sure.
