I heard about commercial pilots making mistakes, but not to be plain incompetent. Reading the article, even the transcription of the radio conversation is one example - I don't need the author of the article explain what is wrong there, I know it myself (2 weeks ago I had to renew my radio operator license, so I just had the refresher course). I don't even have too high standards for pilots, it is a basic expectations the airlines to hire and maintain competent pilots that will not crash planes on their first incident. This is because most of the plane accidents I know personally are either pilot error or technical problems that could be avoided or mitigated by any decent pilot.
The pilots of Air France 447 crashed a perfectly flyable plane into the ocean because they failed to apply one of the most basic principles of flight: raising the nose can cause a stall as the aircraft loses speed, whereas bringing down the nose allows you to pick up speed and pull out of a stall. One pilot kept pulling back on the yoke for several minutes until they crashed.
Would you say they just made mistakes, or were just plain incompetent?
