They had a good four minutes to figure it out, although by the last minute they may not have had enough altitude to recover the plane even if they'd understood what they needed to do. Which, alas, they didn't.

I fly all those carriers, cheerful Cameron. Even, reluctantly, those US regional carriers that exist because they can pay their pilots $20,000 a year and pretend they aren't working another job or two and are actually awake and alert in the cockpit.

That doesn't mean I don't keep in mind the shortcomings of each in making my choices. And if the traveling public was more informed and applied the same consideration, the economic pressure might eliminate some of the problem carriers or force them to amend their attitudes.

Flying is not inherently safe. Engines suffer uncontained explosions (e.g. A380), power distribution stuff self-destructs (two 787 incidents now, hardly friendly in an ETOPS airplane), tails fall off, fuselages develop unscheduled holes. Some of those events can be recovered by an experienced aircrew - which alas costs money.

On the human side, not all airlines have successfully emplaced Cockpit Resource Management (CRM) - happy-talk for assuring that the guys up front work as a team at all times; a few use barely-legal co-pilots, some who are paying for the privilege of sitting there and building up enough time to get a paying job; at least one is accused of influencing captains to save money by uploading less fuel than they would prefer; and some are blessed with a cadre of 'cowboy' pilots who are less conservative than their peers - they might, perhaps, skip de-icing because they 'know' the snow will blow off during the takeoff run.

So I make choices.