Jose wrote:

The issue is that the pilot is making a decision that has an immediate
and consequential impact on the probablility of several people getting
hurt or killed.


No, actually I think the decision was a joint one. The pilot had no
command or situational authority over the people on the ground. He had
situational authority over the one (mechanic) passenger, but I'll bet he
discussed it with the passenger.

In this case, how many lives were put at serious risk? - maybe a 1 in
10 chance of up to 5 people getting hurt or killed


I think you just made those numbers up. Maybe a 1 in 1000 chance of
minor injury. I just made those numbers up too. Do you have any
statistics to back up your claim? The only statisitic I have is ten
tries, no injuries, success, plus another incident that was similar I
remember reading about some time ago. I have never heard of a case of
an injury from doing this.

Likewise, I've seen at least a few of these attempts succeed and I've
yet to read of a fatality involving such attempts so I'd say the safety
record is 100%! Few things in life have proven to be 100% safe, so I'd
say this is something worth attempting to save the aircraft and the crew
and since the risk is proven to be zero, why not? :-)


Matt