In article , "Kobra"
writes:

Thanks for all your kind words.

I received an email from a member who asked some questions and I thought I'd
post the questions and my answers:

I sent your email to a 737 pilot friend and got this reply:

*Chuck

A interesting story, thanks for sharing.

FYI, the 737 - and every other "big" airplane I know of - DOES have a rather
obnoxious aural warning when the autopilot disconnects. I believe that
requirement came out of an accident where an L-1011 descended into the Florida
Everglades at night while the crew was fixated on a landing gear abnormal.
They had the autopilot on, but it disconnected and no one noticed since all
three pilots were concerned with the gear problem. Moral of that story ( and
many others): let's always have SOMEBODY flying the plane.

There was also an accident in a large turbojet aircraft (727?) years ago (as I
recall it was a freighter) where the crew forgot to turn on the pitot heat
before takeoff. They were climbing when the pitot tubes iced up, and crew
responded to the increasing indicated airspeed by pitching up more and more
until they entered a stall/spin. Not good. Needless to say, the crew
perished.

Seems like it's been a long time since anyone's thought of a new way to kill
themselves in an airplane; we just stick to the tried and ture ways.

Cheers,

Stan
*