GDBholdings writes:

Msxmanic does have a point in the fact that if you panic and/or get
hysterical during a in-flight emergency there is a good chance that you will
lose total control and crash. However in this case I didn't feel that the
pilot was in panic mode but rather was VERY concerned about the fact that
she couldn't maintain altitude or airspeed and communicated to ATC that she
did indeed have a serious in-flight emergency. I myself think she did a very
good job of keeping control of the aircraft.

She repeated herself a lot and kept telling ATC about something that
ATC could not help with. Then she hogged the frequency a bit with
long reports about what she had done, what she was doing, and what she
intended to do, even though none of these were relevant to ATC.

She says "6500 and descending many times," but if she were truly
descending, she wouldn't remain at 6500 for subsequent reports.

The big surprise is that she was a commercial pilot. I'm glad it was
FedEx, which implies that nobody else was at risk.

Doesn't surprise me at all, just because someone has a commercial license
doesn't mean that they are immune to panic. Training for emergencies is the
best way to survive an in-flight emergency but training is training and I
feel doesn't have the same impact as the real thing.

The most successful pilots and controllers are those who remain
emotionless even in dire situations. If you listen to tapes of many
accident situations, veteran commercial pilots often sound as though
they're having tea rather than trying to overcome an emergency. And
ATC is famous for its constant "Houston center" calm, even in the face
of the worst emergency. People like this are people who survive in
emergencies.

It surprises me that she's a commercial pilot, supposedly with
considerable experience in this aircraft and in flying generally, and
she doesn't seem to understand the risk or reality of icing. ATC has
to suggest it to her, and even then she doesn't seem to get it.

Having said all that I am happy that she survived the ordeal and hopefully
will come away from this a better more experienced pilot!!

Maybe. But personalities don't change much, and if she handles one
emergency poorly, she'll probably handle them all poorly.

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