Originally Posted by Danny Deepwood

These aircraft are almost fully automated in regards to many things. I heard on one news report that the auto throttle was controlling the speed until they over rode it too late. The truth is we will never hears the NTSBs findings until possibly years later. Right now its all speculation.

I was licenced aircraft mechanic for 12 years, and I have known many pilots and still do. To get a Co-Captain job on any 777 at any airline you have to pay your dues royally. You often need a University degree and thousands of hours flying time on big aircraft. No noobs get that job, a 777 cost is 250 to 300 million with over 300 souls on board. True they say he was still training for that "type" but guarantee that he had 1000s of hours on heavys of many varieties.

This clip was the Paris Airshow with the first "fly by wire" airbus meaning no control cables to the flight controls, only wires to actuators trough a computer, pilot tried everything to get control but the computer was frozen. All these aircraft are fly by wire now.